One Resolution

09Mar12

As you know, zen twenty-ten was born of a New Year’s resolution that I made in 2010.  This year, I made one tiny resolution.  It was so insignificant that  I didn’t even blog about it.  It was to keep my electronic devices charged.

This morning, I looked at my Blackberry, which I use for work, to see whether I had any morning meetings and I noticed I had a voicemail message.  It’s a relatively new Blackberry, so I was figuring out how to retrieve the message when my battery died.  So much for listening to the message, and so much for my New Year’s resolution.

Then I got to the gym and was listening to music on my iPhone, which had the red “battery low” symbol.  Luckily, it held out throughout my workout.  When I got to my car, I wanted to listen to my iPod, which has much more music than my iPhone, only to find it completely dead. 

What is it with me and New Year’s resolutions??


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Clean Bathtub

07Mar12

My parents’ cleaning lady brought a helper with her, who saw my parents’ immaculate house and asked what she was supposed to clean.  ”Clean it as if it were dirty,” the cleaning lady told her.

This was an “aha” and a “duh” moment for me.  A few weeks ago, I cleaned my bathtub, a task which I abhor and have posted about in the past.  Perhaps if I do maintenance cleaning regularly, it will stay that way with little effort.

 

Here are my maintenance efforts thus far:

Week 1 post cleaning: Open window.  Remove shampoos and other assorted bottles from shower.  Spray shower walls and tub with harmful chemicals (actually, it was Dow’s Scrubbing Bubbles – I have no idea whether they’re harmful chemicals or not).  Shave legs at sink.  When legs are finished, rinse harmful chemicals (a removable shower head makes this easy).  Put shampoos back.  Take shower in clean tub.

 

Week 2 post cleaning:  Saturday – ok, fine, the tub is getting a tiny bit dingy.  Scrub with Bar Keeper’s Friend cleanser.  Because it hadn’t gotten too dingy yet, it didn’t require too much effort.  Sunday, repeat process from week 1 but only the shower walls because the tub’s already clean.

This is what you get in a family with three girls. Shower clutter. Hair needs take precedence.

And here is my reward to myself for keeping the shower clean for two weeks.  Maybe if I’m lucky, I may never have to scrub again.

 


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FML

06Mar12

Here are a few FML moments from my day:

I recently bought a cardigan at Banana Republic, swapping out the flashy one my daughter picked out for a more muted one.  Today I saw the one I didn’t buy in Marie Claire magazine.

I turned on the radio to hear, “and that closes out our set of cover songs.” I am a cover song fanatic and they never play a whole set of cover songs on the radio.

Also on my Banana Republic shopping splurge, I bought a striped jersey and some ballet flats.  I wore them the other day and thought I looked so cute.  Today at Trader Joe’s, I saw a woman wearing a similar jersey with jeans and the same ballet flats, looking way better than I’ll ever look in the outfit.

It took me way too long to do my weekly shopping — I went to the farmers’ market, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Ralphs.

To avoid being a jerk, I didn’t want to leave my Trader Joe’s sample-size coffee cup in the cart, so I put it in my car to throw out at my next stop.  Now the crumpled coffee cup is lost in my car.

This morning at the gym, I saw the adorable trainer who I have a crush on.  Since he was training someone very close to where I was working out, he would sometimes glance my way and one time he even smiled.  Unfortunately, I had a metal clip in my hair, pinning my bangs back.  Not a cute one either — it was a clip that hairdressers use when they’re drying your hair.

Sigh. FML.


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“Saved” A Bundle

05Mar12

I “saved” a ton of money last week.  I went to the mall with my daughter, previously known as Little One, but as she is now almost 14 and taller than me, I will call her Miss Fashionista for this post.  The mission: go straight to Cathy Jean, buy Miss Fashionista some not-too-expensive (MF is hard on shoes) shoes that she would love and I would likely hate, then hoof it to the supermarket for our weekly shopping, and get home in plenty of time for the Academy Awards.

Buying the shoes was fast, so I asked Miss Fashionista if we could stop at Banana Republic to look at some straight leg pants I’ve been eyeing.  When we walked in, the salesperson held out some fanned envelopes and told me to pick one — they held 25, 30, or 50% off certificates.  Luck on my side, I got the 50% off.  What a deal!  I suspected that they were all 50% off, but the salesperson assured me that wasn’t true.

I shouldn’t have shopped, knowing that coupons and sales always make you spend money you wouldn’t have otherwise.  But consider the situation.  I was in the mall alone with Miss Fashionista, who dresses me better than I dress myself.  Last time we shopped together, she made me buy skinny jeans, which I love.  Also, I was wearing my comfortable but frumpy Hanna Andersson grey flannel dress.  I tried to dress it up with a cardigan and flats, but it looked like I pulled a cardigan on over my nightgown.  So I was receptive to Miss Fashionista’s fashion suggestions.

In no time, we had the dressing room filled with sweaters, blouses, slacks, and skirts.  Miss Fashionista had me try on a pencil skirt with a chiffon blouse and a bright yellow cardigan, and then she made me put on these extremely high heels.  Let’s just say that the look was a little bit nicer than comfortable grey dress with a cardigan.  I was resolved to get clothes in my size, because my natural tendency is to get them one size too big.  Which led me to ask the inevitable and stereotypical girl question, “does this skirt make my butt look big?”  I actually asked it to the saleswoman, dying of embarrassment but needing to hear the answer before I committed to the skirt.

In the end, I got a bunch of stuff, all of which are wardrobe staples, and spent hundreds of dollars that I didn’t intend to.  See, that’s what “sales” do to you.  But now I have new clothes that fit.

Note to self: do not give up day job to become a fashion photographer.

 


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Canisters

27Feb12

Over the holidays, I was obsessed by finding canisters.  I wanted to move my flour and sugar from the pantry to pretty canisters on the counter.

My sister, aka Life Coach for All Things Organizational, thinks that canisters create counter clutter.  But I had my reasons for wanting canisters.  By moving my flour and sugar out of the pantry, I’d create space for the overflow food that didn’t fit in the pantry and ended up on the counter, such as cereal boxes.  The Tupperware containers that held my flour and sugar, which I bought at a Tupperware party more than 20 years ago, were breaking.  Truth be told, only the lids were broken — Tupperware is pretty indestructible.  Also, I’ve been on a bread baking kick, and it was a pain to have to take things out of the pantry to get to the flour Tupperware — lots of small items invariably got stacked on top of it.

Buying canisters isn’t as easy as you’d think.  I had three criteria — the canisters had to be attractive enough to sit on the counter, be large enough to fit a 5-lb. bag of flour, and be air-tight enough to keep bugs out but not so air-tight that they would be impossible to open.  After extensive research, there are practically no canisters that fit all three criteria.  After much searching, I got these canisters at Crate and Barrel.

They are not large enough to fit a 5-lb. bag of flour, but I love them.  They are clean-looking, easy to open, and large enough to fit my measuring cup easily.  I love having my flour and sugar on the counter instead of the pantry.  It’s so nice not to have to root through the pantry just to get a spoonful of sugar for my coffee or a spoonful of flour for a sauce.  And as you can see, there are no cereal boxes on my counter, as they now fit into the pantry.

For good measure, I got this salt canister from Sur La Table.

I didn’t really need a salt canister – I keep my salt in a ramekin – but it’s so attractive, I couldn’t resist.  It’s come in handy too, since my ramekin doesn’t hold much and I was constantly having to refill it — a task that was inexplicably annoying which I would always try to con my daughter into doing.

Who knew that such a small kitchen change could make me so happy?


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Send Money…..Check Preferred

26Feb12

My friend emailed me to tell me that he was running the LA Marathon for charity, and that if I was so inclined I could sponsor him by mailing a check to the address in the email.  He said that there was an option to contribute online, but since the service takes a cut, it would be better to send the check directly to the charity.

My friend clearly does not realize how lazy I am.  Or shall I say, how challenged I am in the bill-paying department.

Case in point: Both of my daughters’ public schools have a fund-raising drive.  One accepts online donations and the other doesn’t.  Guess which school I’ve contributed to?

Another case in point: My 6-year-old niece called me to ask me to buy raffle tickets for her school (another public school doing fund-raising).  First of all, that’s hitting below the belt — having an adorable 6-year-old call and ask me for money.  And for her school, no less.  I wanted to tell my sister, “listen sis, do you know how many fund raisers my kids’ schools have had over the years and did I ever hit you up???”  Well once I did, but that was when I was getting a parent honoree award after ten long years of volunteer service!  Second of all, buying the raffle tickets required me to send my sister a check for $20 before the window closed.  As I missed the deadline last year (hmm, wonder how that happened), my sister, aka Life Coach For All Things Organizational, called to remind me.  This, along with the fact that I put “send check” on my iPhone reminder list (to no avail – I still needed the guilt call from my sister), ensured that I got the check in.  Now I’d better win the damn iPad.

What are the odds that I’ll send my friend his check for the LA Marathon?  Part of me wants to force myself to mail the check – because it’s really not that hard, is it?  But the other part of my wants to up my contribution by a few bucks and do it online.  That option has a greater likelihood of getting done.  And that’s the point, right?

 


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Smug Look

23Feb12

It rained for about 10 minutes the other day.  It just happened to be the 10 minutes that I was walking back from a meeting that was about three blocks from my office.

When I exited the building, I was dismayed to see that it was raining, but then I smiled.  I had remembered my umbrella.

I smugly put my umbrella up, even though it was barely raining.  Really, car windshield wipers were only on intermittent.

Wow, you’re thinking, you remembered your umbrella.  That’s really blogworthy.  But for someone who is disorganized enough to start a blog about it, remembering an umbrella when there’s only a 30% chance of rain is indeed blogworthy.  In the meantime, I’m staying dry.  And feeling smug about it.


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Ginger

22Feb12

I hate grating ginger.  Fresh ginger gives zing to a dish, but grating it either takes forever or involves injury.  I tried buying a jar of minced ginger, only to find out that it had high fructose corn syrup in it!  And I bought it at Gelson’s — a high-end supermarket!

I have a proper ginger grater:

This method works, but takes forever.  My recipe called for 2 tablespoons of ginger.  We’re nowhere close to that amount.  So I get impatient and switch to the microplane grater:

Much faster, but results in injury every time:

This is my mostly healed injury from my prior ginger grating experience.  It was pretty bloody when it was fresh, until my 13-year-old insisted on putting a New Moon band-aid (yes, that would be New Moon of the Twilight series) on it.

Here’s my progress so far.  Does this look like 2 tablespoons to you?  Far from it.

Do you have a better method of grating ginger?


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Function Over Form

21Feb12

Sometimes I prefer form over function.  Or is that style over subtance?

Such is the case with my toothbrush holder.  For years, I’ve had this very attractive toothbrush holder.

Unfortunately, it collects water and makes the toothbrush handles mildewy.  I drain the water every day, but to no avail.  I even clean the inside with a bleach and water solution from time to time, but the mildew always comes back.

Finally, my husband put his foot down and refused to keep his toothbrush in it anymore.  We now use this toothbrush holder:

You can actually see mildew on the bottom of the yellow toothbrush.  You’ll be happy to know that my husband threw out this toothbrush today and replaced it with a new one.  This toothbrush holder is fine — quite functional.  But I’ll miss the other one.

Good bye, sniff, sniff…..


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The Cleanse

20Feb12

When we last spoke, I said that I was doing Whole Living magazine’s cleanse.  In case you were wondering what has happened to me for the last month, no I did not perish for lack of protein, nor did I slink away in embarrassment because I quit the cleanse.  Indeed, I finished the cleanse.  For three weeks, I had no caffeine, alcohol, sugar, processed foods, gluten, or dairy.

It was rough.  The hardest part was having to prepare breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.  By the third week, I got sick of preparing snacks, so I was hungry all the time.  The second hardest part was having to negotiate social situations.  Every time something came up, such as a lunch that I had previously scheduled, before I decided to go on a cleanse, I was tempted to ditch the cleanse.  But I stuck with it.

Did giving up all that bad food make me feel better?  Not really.  I feel fine with my regular diet (which is pretty healthy).  It’s not like my cleanse diet gave me huge bursts of energy.  However, the cleanse made me more mindful about eating.  How often do we eat when we’re not hungry?  For me, often.  I also lost weight, which I believe that I’ve gained back within a few weeks of ending the cleanse.  So much for lasting effects.

The worst part about the cleanse is that it felt very corporate.  It was sponsored by Whole Living magazine, which is one of Martha Stewart’s magazines.  They would post recipes and generic words of inspiration on their website, but it never felt like there was a person behind it to cheer you along.  You could start a community blog, which I did, and bloggers and readers could support each other.  But never did anyone from the magazine comment on any of the blogs or provide any personal encouragement.  The magazine’s editor did her own blog (not on the community blog page, but elsewhere on the website), and seeing pictures of the Whole Living staff making smoothies together at the office made me feel even more alone in my endeavor.  And truth be told, the fact that the Whole Living editor did not “discover” the brilliant wit of my community blog and offer me a regular column in the magazine (despite the fact that I was ranked #1 community blogger) made me bitter.  After all, that was my motivation behind the cleanse.

Despite the fact that my family thought I was crazy, I’m proud of the fact that I started the new year in a healthy way.  I now eat more mindfully and have an even greater appreciation for good food than I did before.  Will I try another cleanse?  No way in the world.  Unless Whole Living magazine offers me a column first.

 


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