It kept popping its head up and I've largely been suppressing it - continuing on a path that wasn't working just to avoid a glorious risk.
And then it was all about to fall apart. All of the tiny neat stitches holding it all together started to come loose.
I was dropped into quiet and darkness and the spectre of a decision.
I've been quiet on this blog as I have been in my day to day life, allowing thoughts to silently, slowly wash over me without outside influences or editing.
Image credit: Nowhere by J. Star
As I allowed myself to venture into the quiet I found a different self. A self unafraid of quiet, unafraid of slow. A self prepared to be raw and exposed in a more genuine way.
I doubt I'm the only one who took advantage of fast-paced life and noise and chaos to avoid true reflection and self-understanding.
Nor am I the first to realise I was hiding behind urgency and using lack of time as a crutch for lack of guts.
Image credit: Sometimes the smallest touch is enough
Interestingly as I allow myself to accept my real self, I've got to know others better too. I've discovered that many of my friends have amazing skills and talents that I hadn't even begun to recognise before.
Over the next few weeks I'll tell you more about my own new direction and will also introduce you to some of my supremely talented friends.
I'm looking forward to hearing your stories too - please post your thoughts in the comments, or send them to me privately if you prefer.
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]]>I read enough zen and life management blogs to know it really should be easy - do what you love and what is important to you.
Doing it all?
But what if you're a greedy Gen Y who wants it all?
Perhaps, just perhaps, having
- a stimulating, challenging career;
- health (including a healthy weight) and fitness without gyms, sacrifice or monotony;
- quality and quantity time with food, wine and the people I love;
- a conscious, sustainable, environmentally friendly lifestyle;
- being a domestic goddess (or something remotely resembling that); and
- contributing to society in a positive way;
all at once, really is impossible?
Life balance in 140 characters or less
I asked some of my friends on twitter to tell me how they created and maintained life balance. I'd like to share some of those ideas and comments with you.
sunili, who is what you could conservatively call a crazy brilliant high-achieving Gen Y (read all about it at de minimis ago curat blog) told me:
I don't but I try...
Oddly, it is rather reassuring to see that I'm not the only one struggling with this. Personally I think she's doing a pretty good job of managing her career and living in accordance with her ideals and convictions.
photo credit: justice is blind
I also got some practical advice from frank_in_oz:
I work my butt off 10 months of the year and have 2 months off for short breaks - hiking, travel, camping. Goal - work 6 mths
Frank is the consummate active traveller and outdoor lover and has hiked in some absolutely breathtaking places, including some of my favourite parts of the world.
This is great advice if you can swing it. My heart leaps at the thought of that much travel. But. What if the 10-month work cram is just too hard, or just not possible? My husband and I are in the stage of our careers where taking this sort of time off work each year is all but impossible.
photo credit: dove lake
Balance is the level of compromise you can live with.
Sage advice from hazelblackberry who proves you can do anything after a Bex and a Good Lie Down. I really think this is key.
photo credit: fruit balance
Via a tweet from tessgiles who blogs at Anchors and Masts I discovered Magpie Girl's Do Less Campaign. Magpie Girl reminds us that sometimes, it just isn't possible to do it all and we just have to do less. The campaign officially starts tomorrow, Friday 15 May and will be a step-by-step approach to doing less and feel better.
So if you're feeling like the balance just isn't happening, you might want to head over to Magpie Girl's blog to take a look.
Alternatively you could try what has been my strategy to date - try to do everything, over-commit, collapse in a heap and then fail at everything.
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photo credit: bayat
I now weigh 68.3kg. Yes, I weigh more than I did last week.
The most important thing to remember is that good change is gradual. Or as Mae West said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.”
I'm not aiming for tabloid style fast weight loss. I'm aiming for a sustainable, healthier, better way of living and enjoying food. So I'm ok with the weight gain as long as I can learn from it.
So why didn't I lose weight?
- During the week I went out for high tea for a good friend's 30th and dinner for my mother's **th (deleted to protect the old) birthday. On the same day. I didn't moderate my eating or drinking at all and had fun with friends and family. This is ok in and of itself - but I didn't make healthier choices later in the week to balance it out.
- I ate because I was stressed, not because I was hungry. I was nervous about a review meeting at work and I ate to quieten the butterflies in my stomach. I should have had a few glasses of water or gone for a brisk walk instead.
- I skipped a meal. I went to bed early one night and then woke up hungry at midnight. Hot cross buns are not a nutritious, balanced dinner.
- I used the car when I should have walked. I was lazy. I live walking distance from several fabulous butchers, a good greengrocer, an excellent deli, cafes and more. Yet I relied on the car instead of my feet. I'm not a big fan of organised exercise for exercise's sake. I am however a big fan of reducing reliance on cars and integrating activity into normal routine.
UPDATE: I just came across a fabulous post at Feasibly Fit Mom that gives examples for 5 minute workouts - yes, five minutes. Even I can do that!
There is plenty of room for improvement this week. I'll keep you up to date with my progress.
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photo credit: Photoportunity
Each week I like to add some new dishes to the menu.
We do have our favourites that pop up on the meal plan on a regular basis (particularly mid-week) but I enjoy discovering new favourites too.
Here are some great recipes from the blogosphere and beyond that I'll be trying in the next week.
photo credit: Darwin Bell
Emma Knowles' Vietnamese Prawn Salad (Gourmet Traveller): This recipe looks light, fresh and well balanced. As a bonus, you'll find a short, simple ingredients list and minimal preperation and cooking time.
We'll be eating this one outside. Asian food and wine pairing can be tricky, however I think a young grassy sauvignon blanc or perhaps a riesling could work. I expect though that we'll be cracking open a few bottles of Hoegaarden (or Hoegaarden Grand Cru if we're feeling indulgent) instead.
Tips: I've previously successfully substituted brown sugar for palm sugar and if you have good pans I'm sure you can get away with less oil.
Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez's Chana Punjabi (as shared by The Wednesday Chef): Warm, luxurious and enticing, without offending the budget. Store cupboard basics and a few fresh bits and pieces easily picked up on your way home never looked so good!
No you won't be eating this in 15 minutes, but pour yourself and your partner a glass or two of wine while you stir and allow yourself to slow down and relax. There's no complicated prep or advanced cookery magic here. All you need is a bit of time and basic ingredients.
Note: Cilantro is also known as coriander.
photo credit: sea turtle
crispy chewy chocolate chip cookies by Smitten Kitchen: Speaks for itself really, doesn't it? A classic recipe that I'm sure will please everyone.
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]]>In the good old days, life was better. Men worked and women stayed home, kept the house, looked after the kids and wore frilly aprons over pretty dresses.
Everyone knew their place and life was simple and modern issues of career vs career and whose turn it is to race from work early to pick the kids up from day care were non-existent. Something like that anyway.
Oh no! Here comes feminism!
Along came feminism and we fought to get away from the sink and into the classroom and boardroom. We did such an awesome job at proving women can and should do anything (more like everything) you could say the choice has almost disappeared in the opposite direction.
If we accept the reality that for many modern relationships, two incomes are required and desired, life becomes a bit tricky. Particularly when you consider there is often little or no functional difference between partners in income and the level of commitment to career (and education).
- So who picks up the kids from day-care when you're both slaving in the office at 7pm in the pursuit for a corner office with a view?
- Who takes the bin out before going to the gym before work?
- Who washes the floor while muttering into a dictaphone on a Sunday afternoon?
The division of labour is all messed up - and with that comes serious risk of conflict of a relationship-killing kind.
People have been harping on about equality for quite a while now. If large corporates and the government can't get it right in the boardroom, what chance have we got in the home, where relationships are under even more pressure?
The Seesaw theory
Now this may well be unpopular, but my view of equality in the home does not involve an equal division of labour.
You can waste a lot of time thinking (often out loud, usually brought up at a completely unrelated moment) that cooking dinner is harder than putting the dishes away. It doesn't matter. It may well be. Arguing about equality achieves absolutely stuff all.
The reality is that in a successful partnership, sometimes one partner will do more. Sometimes the other partner does more. It balances out.
photo credit: bug138
Think of it like a seesaw, if you each push up and down, you're both on the seesaw and sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. It takes a damn lot of effort to hold the seesaw at even height without one or both falling off.
Could it work?
The way it works in my relationship, and, I suggest might work in yours. Start by working out expectations:
- What does clean mean to each of you?
- What constitutes a weeknight dinner?
Sort out a friendly middle ground. Then each do what you're good at/don't hate too much and outsource whatever is left over.
If you approach it with an open mind it is not that hard to manage. I promise. Be flexible and pick up the slack when the other person has a crazy deadline or is sick or is just sick of it.
If you've got a good partner they'll do the same for you and keep you both on the seesaw.
For more tips for a great relationship, take a look at The Secret Ingredient for a Better Marriage at Zen Habits. It is written by Corey Allen of Simple Marriage.
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]]>It might be time-consuming but I really believe that writing meal plans and shopping lists can help you to eat better more balanced meals and save money too. However, a lot of meal plans are set up so that while you eat nice, healthy, balanced meals and save some dosh, the meals are boring and repeated over and over ad infinitum. I don't like boring, so this is the way I do it.
To write an effective meal plan there are a number of things you will need to do first.
Inventory of your pantry, fridge and freezer
In my mind, this is one of the most important things you can do and so few people do it very often. You will need some spare time for this. I suggest breaking it down over a few days unless you have free time growing on trees (I don't). If you do this thoroughly you will save yourself a lot of time and money later.
Now if you have a perfectly organised and laid out pantry this will be easy. I'll assume you don't. If you do you can go and gloat for a while.
Start by taking the food out of the pantry, one shelf at a time. Once the shelf is empty, dust and then wipe it clean. (I use enjo cloths for this but you can use whatever you like, but please avoid strong chemicals in the kitchen. If you need a non-physical cleaner McClintock's make a nice vanilla fridge wipe that will do the job without spraying poison everywhere.) I also like to clean the pantry walls (mine is a walk-in) at the same time but I'm weird and you don't have to do that.
Take a very close look at all the food that you've pulled out of the pantry. The first thing I do is look for patterns and start to group things together. As you move each item, check the expiry date. When moving pasta, rice etc inspect well for weevils or any other nasties.
Everything in your pantry will be roughly divided into three groups - "I will eat it" "I would like to think that I will eat it because: it is horribly healthy/was on special/some other stupid reason, but I really won't" and "this food is now a science experiment". I hope you have a bin handy.
With the middle group, you can donate this to a charity group or nearest struggling student. In some cases some items may be in the middle group even though they could be in the "I will eat it group" just because you don't know how to prepare it/what to eat it with. If that's the case leave a comment here and I'm sure we can try and help.
You should now just be left with food in the "I will eat it group". Be honest with yourself and make sure that everything left does fit within this category. What is left will tell you something quite important about your eating habits - is everything tinned/packet convenience food or do you have a lot of bulk basics? Do you have 14 packets of rice noodles that were scattered around in different parts of the pantry? At this stage I often write rough notes on each type of food - ie: rice, pasta etc and note if I'm out of anything.
Before you go any further and get distracted you'll need to put everything back in the pantry. Before I do this I chart out my pantry onto paper and work out where I'm going to put everything but you can just roll your eyes at me and ignore that. Do make sure that you give some thought to where you put things though. Put like items with like and be conscious of what is at eye level and what isn't.
For example, in my pantry, my husband's cereal, muesli bars etc are all at his eye level. This avoids the male-pattern-blindness and staring blankly into the pantry every morning. On the other hand, I keep the couverture chocolate on the bottom shelf along with the baking powders, flour etc. I hope he isn't reading this.
Make sure that you can see everything in the pantry easily because you will need to be able to later!
Repeat this with your fridge and freezer. You'll need to work quickly here so just get the food out, clean the fridge (most cleaning products are not suitable for use in the fridge so be careful) and put the "I will eat" things back.
When you put everything back in the fridge make sure that raw meat is kept well separated from everything else. All raw meat in my fridge is kept on the bottom shelf. If you have traditional wire shelves this will stop any chance of raw meat dripping onto something else. I have glass shelves which makes my life easy, and I put meat on plates to further minimise any risk. Yes, I'm paranoid.
It is now probably a few days after you started and you hopefully now have a shiny clean pantry, fridge and freezer. Well done!
The next step is to work out your fridge/freezer/pantry basics that will form the foundation for your meal planning. Click to continue on to part 2 on how to plan your meals.
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photo credit: The Modern Homemaker
Unless you get untied from the sink so that you can trot off in a wool suit to your box on the terrace for every daylight hour and more besides, after which you will glamorously engage in up-to-the-minute witty banter with 40 of your nearest and dearest colleagues who you are dining with again.
You then of course go home, ring your mother and actually listen to what she says, clean the toilet, put the bin out (you're a liberated woman after all), read the paper and a few novels (see the witty banter point above), bake something nice to take to work tomorrow and save at least 15 children from starvation or tractor accidents or something, all while looking hopelessly alluring.
If you're managing all that and vodka isn't a part of your daily routine then I hate you and there is nothing for you here.
Perhaps feminism should go away and focus on the serious stuff, like stopping honour killing and human trafficking and schoolgirls wearing their boyfriends' trackpants. I don't want to be "empowered" to do anything else!
photo credit: Little Sweetie
One of my guilty indulgences is to imagine that I'm a 1950's housewife and I don't need to juggle at all - I would just need to raise perfect kids and keep a spotless house while wearing lovely sticky-outy poofy skirts with poodles on them.
Unfortunately I'm not that great at housekeeping really and if the behaviour of our cats is any indication I'd be a pretty awful parent. I think I could handle the poodles though.
So what has feminism done for me? It has allowed me to do a whole multitude of things all at once and justify being pretty ordinary at all of them.
I have a life full of chaos, contrast and craziness and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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