September 2015

Zen Like The Fox

September 30, 2015 By Karen in be kind to animals

For Wednesday, here’s an interview with photographer Roeselien Raimond that shows recent work from her series Zen Foxes, which is exactly what it says on the tin.

The photos are charming but I also endorse Raimond’s reason for her fox portraits:

For me animals are not necessarily less than human beings, they’re just different and not even that different. I’d like people to see that animals are beings with individual characters, a personality, with their own specific desires, fears, oddities, pros and cons, just like we have. And if my photos can make one person realize that an animal is not a coat to wear, not an object to lock up in a cage, nor something you thoughtlessly cut in slices to eat…that mission would be accomplished.

“Don’t break the chain”

September 29, 2015 By Karen in Uncategorized

Periodically, this life advice from Jerry Seinfeld pops up on the internet:

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task..I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

“Don’t break the chain,” he said again for emphasis.

I decided to try it for a 30-day home yoga challenge and guess what? It works!

There was a warm up period, sure, but it really is a simple way to get yourself to do something. And 20-30 minutes of yoga at home is really doable–this was the challenge I did, and now I’m mixing in her other videos and some free classes from here, too.

The Nicest Days

September 28, 2015 By Karen in nature, quotes

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”

(Pictures from Millcreek Canyon; quote from Anne of Avonlea because finding the part about blue plum preserves last week got me thinking more about the Green Gables series than I have in years.)

Friday Unrelated Information

September 25, 2015 By Karen in Friday Unrelated Information

1. As a shy vegetarian, I thought this weirdness from The Toast was hilarious: Important Sources of Protein for Introverts.

2. Also via The Toast, the world-famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the U of Iowa is holding a totally FREE online lecture series in October about fiction writing (!). Learn more and sign up here.

3. The slider on this fall foliage map is really fun to drag back and forth, back and forth.

Preserves

September 24, 2015 By Karen in Uncategorized

“I’ll make Anne enough of my blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year,” Marilla said… “Such a crop of plums I never remember at Green Gables.”

I’d always wondered what “blue plum preserves” were like when I was reading the Anne of Green Gables series. Twenty-ish years later, I finally found out! My brother got a bumper crop of Italian prune plums from a neighbor so I made jam (to the left of the big jar) and chutney. The jar in the middle that looks like a science experiment will be plum brandy. (I don’t think they’d approve of that in Avonlea.)

Remember

September 23, 2015 By Karen in Uncategorized

I think this will resonate for any creative type who’s a procrastinator:

Just do the work–that client project you’ve been avoiding, the phone calls you have to make, a yoga class. You’ll fell so much better. (At least I do. And now I want a copy of this sign.)

Equinox

September 22, 2015 By Karen in astronomical events, hippies

The fall equinox is tonight at about 2:00 a.m., a few days later this year from the Earth wobbling on her axis. Here’s your heads up if you want to learn about the science or see what neo-pagan ritual to plan for it. As a wanna-be Druid myself, I like this quote about it:

[It] marks the middle of harvest, it is a time of equal day and equal night, and for the moment nature is in balance. It is a time to reap what you have sown, of giving thanks for the harvest and the bounty the Earth provides. For finishing up old projects and plans and planting the seeds for new enterprises or a change in lifestyle.

Also, remember that fall can be hard on people so go easy on yourself this month and next. As a yoga teacher said once, “Our bodies still think we’re cavemen. The weather and the seasons affect us, as civilized as we think we are.”

Keeping Things Interesting

September 21, 2015 By Karen in nature, state fairs, weekend report

Over the weekend we went to the arts contest awards ceremony (a young mixed media artist won but I think I read my poem well); the demolition derby at the state fair; and Big Cottonwood Canyon with the camping hammock. Good times all around.

Happy Birthday To My Brother

September 18, 2015 By Karen in birthdays

It’s my brother’s 39th birthday on Sunday. He’s my only sibling and we fight like all siblings but–he’s my brother. I think this Avett Brothers song sums it up: “Always remember there is nothing worth sharing like the love that lets us share our name.”

Happy (early) birthday!

The Last Donation

September 17, 2015 By Karen in life-changing magic

Monday I had the MS Society truck come and pick up the last handful of items that got Kon Mari-ed, which means I’m done with most of it (there’s still two boxes of old letters and papers in the closet I need to deal with, but those won’t get donated).

I have had a couple moments where I thought, “I wish I still had that,” but it’s only been with clothes–and then I remember that said clothes were too small/ill-fitting and didn’t get worn anyway. Thinking hard about “will this bring me joy?” has really helped me not buy impulse sale items, and my drawers are still all sorted like filing cabinets. I think it was pretty clear I was an initial convert, but nine months later I’m still a believer.

And now that I’ve done the bulk of “uncluttering,” I think this quote from the book really resonates:

“Previously, I had no confidence. I kept thinking that I needed to change, that I should be different, but now I can believe that I am okay just the way I am. By gaining a clear standard by which I can judge things, I gained a great deal of confidence in myself.”

1 2 3