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May 17

Ten Things That Made Me Feel Happy This Week

1) Our 2-yr-old daughter told me multiple times how beautiful the flowers smelled as I was running her to school in the jogging stroller. And she asked me whether it was winter again because it was raining. It was a deeper than usual…and particularly awesome conversation.

2) I saw an elderly couple riding a tandem home from the grocery store. He wore khakis and she wore a dress. May we all be so lucky.

3) Philz Coffee.

4) My parents arrived for a weekend visit, and I was overwhelmed that they are my parents + friends + teachers all at the same time.

5) I learned something new (check out Michael Pollan’s fascinating new article on microbiomes) and felt better about the dirt on my floor.

6) I wished an old friend happy birthday and for a few minutes, was transported back to being a kid.

7) I ate a strawberry from our garden. It was a little bit green, but it doesn’t matter. We grew it!

8) We had dinner outside and the sky was pinkish.

9) A standing weekly meeting at work is now a standing weekly WALKING meeting.

10) I watched a few Granny Rock videos. I CAN’T STOP!

The learning? Only one of these things was purchased (Philz), everything was close to home, and most importantly…THE LITTLE THINGS CAN HAVE A HUGE IMPACT. Happy Friday!

What brightened your spirits this week?

May 16

4 Comments

Time

A few years ago, I did a graduate school project focused on work/life balance, a concept I now think is much better re-framed as work/life integration. My primary research was at a design firm, where I gave people I interviewed a stack of index cards to sort as they saw fit and then craft into a cohesive story. The cards included words that related to the idea of work/life balance…things like: SLEEP, TIME, GROWTH, FAMILY, MONEY, CHALLENGE, CHILDCARE, SKILLS, ETC. Everyone told a very different and equally fascinating story, but one thing really stood out in every single one: a focus on TIME. It sounds obvious, but it’s something we don’t talk about much. As our lives and careers evolve, the limited resource often isn’t opportunity or skill or experience or connections…it’s TIME.

The notion of time as a scarce resource comes up a lot among parents. Actually, it comes up a lot among people. At work, a friend recently lamented the fact that she needs to sleep for eight hours a night. “I could get so much more done in a day if I didn’t need to sleep so much.” (WHAT?!?!) A new dad told me a few months ago, “I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to stay ahead now that I have a huge responsibility outside of work. I used to be able to outwork people (work more/longer), and I can’t do that anymore…nor do I want to.” Executives complain about not having enough white space to think. And when I talk to friends about health + wellness, the response is often “I wish I had more time to cook…exercise…go on dates…etc,” but I just don’t have any TIME.

There is a lot of truth in this. Time is a limiter (I’ve been having one of those “I HAVE NO TIME” weeks), but there are things we can do to make it feel a bit less scarce. We can organize around impact, we can schedule in some “unmoments,” we can be proactive about spending time on the things and people that matter most to us, and we can look to others for ideas. I recently saw two examples of how people are scheduling their days to optimize their time, and I thought I’d share them for inspiration:

via The Daily Muse

by amber rae, via fast company

Oh yeah, and not to be underestimated…we can be easy on ourselves and simply pat ourselves on the back for what we DO get done, and not what we DON’T.

Do you feel stressed about time, or are you at peace with how much time you have to do the things you want/need to get done? What do you do to make sure you’re spending your precious hours on things that matter to you?

May 15

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Refrigerator Cleanout

photo by bobbi bowers, via flickr creative commons

Growing up, I remember eating some weird meals in the name of “refrigerator/freezer cleanout.” Bless my practical and wonderful Midwestern mother who taught by example that we shouldn’t waste a bite, eating a smorgasbord of leftovers or an unexpected combination of sausage, broccoli and peaches (or something like that) was never out of the question. (Note: the saving grace of these meals was that they were likely to be eaten by candlelight).

In my adult life, I have trouble putting together these random meals (in part because I married and share meals with a man who rarely ate leftovers when we met). But nonetheless, I inherited my mother’s practicality and like the idea of putting what I have in the fridge to good use. I made my favorite fridge cleanout meal last night: stir-fry. I’m sure real chefs would cringe to hear me talk about the prized stir-fry as my “cleanout meal,” but I’m not a real chef. I’m just a human trying to put colorful, real, nutrient-dense food into my body via meals that look pretty and taste good enough to make mealtime pleasurable. So if you’re in the same boat as me, here’s the version of the stir-fry I made:

Saute garlic, ginger, and red onion in sesame oil
Add 2 diced carrots, a handful of sliced mushrooms, a head of broccoli chopped into small pieces, spinach leaves, leftover chicken broken into small pieces
Drizzle soy sauce as cooking veggies and warming chicken in wok
Add leftover cooked brown rice
Mix in one scrambled egg per person
Add spice with a drizzle of sriracha sauce as desired

This took 10-15 minutes to make and tasted hearty and whole and real and (dare I say) interesting. I even had seconds….in honor of my mom.

What’s your go-to refrigerator cleanout meal? And if you’re not into using whatever scraps you have, what’s a delicious and super fast meal you’ve cooked lately?

May 14

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Making Memories

photo by counselman collection, via flickr creative commons

“When people say that time goes by too quickly, I generally respond that time goes by at just the right pace. But today, when I think back on the day you were born, that five-year chunk of time seems to have passed very quickly….you’re growing up in an interesting time, as there are lots of social changes afoot (legalization of gay marriage was a huge social issue in the past year) and technology continues to evolve at rocket speed….I was just looking for the email address I reserved for you when you were born and wondered to myself whether email will even exist when you’re old enough to use it….This year has been filled with tragedies in Newtown and Boston and around the world, and every time one occurs, I have to shift my mind away from the fear that it will happen closer to home and find strength in my confidence that you are going to contribute to making this a more peaceful and happy world….I love you with every bit of my soul.”

These are a few excerpts from the birthday letter I wrote to my son last night. Every year on my children’s birthdays, I pour myself a glass of wine and take some time to pen a letter re-capping the past year in their lives, my life, our family, our corner of the world, and the broader world and society we’re part of. My plan is to hold all of these letters and turn them over to the kids when they’re ready to fly the coop…giving them a glimpse into what happened in our lives and in the world as they grew up.

I generally don’t make cakes (I’m a crummy baker) or cool Pinterest-ready gifts on kids’ birthdays, but I do try to “make memories.” Knowing I lacked the discipline to keep up with a traditional baby book, when I had children, I decided these letters would be the way I’d try to connect the dots for myself and our kids. I do this because as time goes on, the events of our days and lives start to bleed together. And an annual milestone like a birthday offers time and space and reason to extract the events and ideas and emotions that stand out over days and months and years and lifetimes and keep them in the forefront of our minds. In the case of the letter I wrote last night, it’s also a great way to help my children (someday) understand who I am…not just as their mom, but as a person. I freely write about my own hopes and fears, my own passions and projects, and my own frustrations and celebrations — to remind myself and teach them about the constant juggling and tradeoffs involved in life….and to remind them that each of us is our own unique person on this planet.

Not everyone likes typing letters like I do, and that’s fine. There are tons of amazing forms of self-expression — songs, videos, drawings, handmade cards, etc. For example, every year on our anniversary, Sean and I pull out a nondescript book that sits on our bookshelf and together jot down a few notes of trips we took, job highlights and challenges, friends we made, things that happened in the world, etc. This weekend’s New York Times featured drawings authors made of their children at specific ages, accompanied by a brief 1-sentence summary of the parent’s greatest fear.

The practice of making memories will look and feel different for anyone who does it, but the point is that taking time to make memories — both for yourself and for your loved ones — can be a powerful way to anchor our past, direct our futures, and knit our common experiences together in really special ways.

What do you think? Do you do anything special to mark the time between birthdays, anniversaries, or even just calendar years? What do you do, why do you do it, and who do you share it with?

May 13

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Saturdate

photo by gluioo, via flickr creative commons

Sean and I went for a bike ride Saturday. A 2.5 hour bike ride. Together. We left home together…rode up a mountain together…and rode home together. I know this might not sound that exciting to you, but it was a big deal for us. Most Saturdays we don’t even see each other before noon at the earliest. He’s gone before I wake up and when he gets back, I’m out the door before he can even mix a glass of Gatorade. This is the behind-the-scenes reality of two parents wanting to get substantive weekend workouts in, yet feeling like we should be with our kids during every moment of non-work daylight. It’s very efficient and very…unromantic.

Ever since having kids, I’ve felt like one or both parents need to be with the kids if they’re awake and we’re not working. We even negotiated AWAKE and ASLEEP rates with our babysitter so that we didn’t feel frustrated about paying exorbitant babysitting rates for someone who never even see the whites of our children’s eyes (99% of the time). Rather than go out and bask in the early evening sunshine or catch a happy hour, we usually head out after dinnertime/bathtime/bedtime only to fight off falling asleep in our soup (movies are out of the question after 7pm). So this is why a daytime date (yes, we call a bike ride a date) was so extraordinary.

Don’t get me wrong…this wasn’t our first daytime date. But daytime dates haven’t historically happened very often, and this was the first time I actually asked myself about the why. Here’s the list of trade-offs I could come up with:

PROS: both of us waking up when it’s light outside, going out to breakfast as a family, doing an art project, working out together, feeling happy for the rest of the day, wanting to spend the rest of the day with the kids, kids get to play at park with fun babysitter
CONS: we get a bit less time with the kids, kids “had” to play at the park with fun babysitter

Enough said — this was a true case of quality over quantity — on both the date and the kids front. We had better quality family time (all of us together versus ships passing in the night), and Sean and I stayed awake throughout our whole date. It was a win-win, and while it might not become our weekly reality, it will definitely happen more often from here on out.

If you have kids, how do you feel about daylight babysitting? How do you manage to get your weekend workouts in?

May 10

2 Comments

Work Friends Matter

I had lunch with a friend at work today. Not just a co-worker…a friend. We sat at a sushi bar and talked about our lives and batted around work ideas in a way that we could have done whether we worked together or not. When we got up to leave, I felt better about life, I felt better about work, and I even felt better about the world. I felt more connected, and I felt more like myself.

This brief lunch reinforced Gallup’s research — “having a best friend at work” matters (note: “best” is used here a way to differentiate, not necessarily connoting what we think of as a “best friend”). Gallup talks about why it matters in the context of engagement + productivity at work, but from a personal perspective, I think it’s important to think about how much it matters in terms of our emotional well-being. Spending as much time at work as we do in today’s world, having a friend — or lots of friends — at work makes it easier to be our true, authentic selves. It makes it easier for us to show the highs and the lows…to share what’s working and what’s not…to give open and honest feedback…and to stay emotionally connected to a company and a culture.

So I end this week grateful…to live in a world where as life and work are blending, friendship connects the two.

Do you have a great friend at work, and how has it changed your work…and your life?

May 9

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The 7-Minute Workout

The New York Times just posted a short article about high-intensity interval training (HIIT) –something I’m always interested in learning more about because it’s so effective and efficient. The article shares the findings of a study published in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal, which concludes that 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair, and a wall constitute a HIIT workout and just take seven (uncomfortable — at a level 8 on a scale of 1-10) minutes. And according to the study authors, these precious seven minutes “produce molecular changes within muscles comparable of those of several hours of running or bike riding.” Seriously?! That’s AMAZING, totally defying everything many of us grew up thinking about exercise (i.e., more = better).

We all have at least seven minutes. In fact, I’d argue that we all have at least 28 minutes and could do this workout multiple times during the day. Yes, a long, luxurious workout beats this any day, but time is a scarce resource these days. And if I can get seven minutes, I’ll take it — in the gym, in the garage, in a conference room with the door closed, or in the parking lot waiting to pick up my kids.

Are you into HIIT, and if so, what’s your favorite workout/class? And if you haven’t tried it but would like to, check out my earlier post on Tabata and my friend Karisa’s simple-but-super-tough home workout.

May 8

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Breakfast Inspiration: Steel Cut Oats

photo by stacy spensley, via flickr creative commons

We all need an effortless morning once in a while (says the girl writing a blog post at 11pm), and having steel cut oats for breakfast is one of my favorite ways to ease into the day. If you’re looking for a new idea — or a new take on an old one — prep your steel cut oats the night before, so all you need to do is heat them up after you start the coffee! And if you’re like me and wondering if steel cut oats are any better for you than regular old Quaker oats, the answer is…no. Both stack up the same, from a health and an environmental perspective. But from a yumminess perspective, I vote for steel cut all the way…ideally topped with blueberries, slivered almonds, and a touch of honey.

How do you like yours? Do you have any ninja breakfast secrets that make your mornings easy and delish?

May 7

7 Comments

The Most Important Relationship

I heard Diane von Furstenberg talk today, and she totally blew me away. I feel like I should go out and buy a new wrap dress tonight in her honor just to remember over and over again how her talk made me feel. I’m not exaggerating – she was one of the most grounded, authentic, bright, self-assured, funny, ageless, wise, beautifully human people I have ever heard, and she gracefully put words to so many of the things I believe.

She made one brief, yet powerful comment that sums up who she is: “The most important relationship you have in life is the one you have with yourself” (she later re-framed this as your “friendship with yourself”). After all, it’s impossible to have strong relationships with other people – your family, your partner, your kids, your colleagues, your friends – if you aren’t able to accept and embrace who you are. As my mother told me from the time I was little girl on, “you need to love yourself before you can love other people.” Diane called this “smiling at your shadow.”

I’ve heard these words before – maybe even said them before myself – but for some reason they really rang true today. She shared numerous stories about her hunger for independence, regardless of what relationships she was in. She talked about being able to pursue audacious dreams and achieve amazing things because she knew who she was and she gave herself the love and care she deserved, minimizing self-criticism and self-doubt. And she spoke about the lifelong quest for clarity about who we are and what we’re doing in the world.

Despite always being a little bit shy about standing ovations, I leapt to my feet after her talk to show my overwhelming gratitude – for both being a role model and for giving every woman in that room permission to treat ourselves with care…not in a way that minimizes the care of others, but as a way to make sure we have the energy to give our best to other people. I now see my wrap dresses in a whole new light…and I can’t wait to channel my inner DVF every time I wear one.

Have you ever met someone who changed the way you thought about your life in a very short time? Who was it, and what did you learn?

P.S. If you’re interested in a few other pieces of wisdom Diane shared today, here were some of my favorites:

“If you can pack a suitcase, you can organize your life.”
“Passion, instinct and love beat data every time.”
“You have to be serious at the base so you can be frivolous at the top.”
“The biggest gift you can give yourself is independence.”
“I have never met a woman who wasn’t strong.”

May 6

3 Comments

Hockey Moments

photo by TAZphotos, via flickr creative commons

We went to watch one of the kids’ preschool teachers play hockey last night (yes SHE IS THAT AWESOME), and I was mesmerized by the sounds of ice scraping, the puck smashing into the wall, and the players yelling to one another between labored breaths. I hadn’t been to a hockey game in a long time, and there was something about the pace of the game – the constant shifting as players went on and off the ice – that felt so “present.”

I think I was particularly struck by this last night because I don’t always feel present in my life right now. My mind skips to work when I’m with my kids and it drifts to my kids when I’m at work. It meanders to future blog posts when I’m in spin class, and I sometimes check the yoga schedule when I’m mid-conversation with my husband. Time and thoughts are fluid these days, and as much as I wonder if I’d feel more at peace if they were more carefully delineated, they’re just not right now. I don’t know if they ever will be. Despite what productivity experts lead us to believe, life is messy and orderly and crazy and beautiful at the same time.

Watching the players skate across the ice last night made me think that the way to be more present isn’t to be more present in every single moment. That’s just way too much pressure. But it is about finding the “hockey moments” – the narrow (or broad, if you’re lucky) slices of time where you can be 100% in the moment. Where you can find your flow and lose track of time “until the bell rings.” For this beautiful teacher, her moments are on the ice. For a dear friend of mine, it’s when she’s doing crafts with her daughter. For another friend, it’s cooking a meal. For me lately, it’s writing these posts and standing on my head (not at the same time).

The more we can find these little micro-moments that help us stay in the now, the more we’ll actually be in the now. So for me, moving from chaos to presence is about the little things adding up and becoming big things more than it’s about drastic changes or forcing focus. It’s about starting with the low-hanging fruit and building upon that, moment by moment, day by day, and year by year.

When’s the last time you were truly “in the moment?” What helps you stay in the present?

Archive for

Ten Things That Made Me Feel Happy This Week

Time

Refrigerator Cleanout

Making Memories

Saturdate

Work Friends Matter

The 7-Minute Workout

Breakfast Inspiration: Steel Cut Oats

The Most Important Relationship

Hockey Moments

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