This was a very (over?) thinky week. Work stuff, blog stuff, personal stuff. I didn’t do much outside the usual but it felt like a lot was going on. In my head, at least.

Morning

On January 1 I started doing this (weird? obsessive-compulsive? amazingly organized?) thing where I write about every day in “notes” on my phone – not like a journal, no feelings or assessments – the day, what I did, what I wore, what I spent and what I spent it on. The plan was to then transfer the expenses to a spreadsheet (what is wrong with me) so I can track my spending and see what I’m spending $ on overall. Why? I don’t know. Will it help me in some way? I don’t know. But it has been useful this month when I’m like, WHAT did I do last Tuesday? I can just look back and see. And that’s kinda cool. It’s good for those times that you think “oh, that happened just a few days ago,” but you look back and see that it actually happened two weeks ago.

The idea came about from my friends and I never being able to remember the things we’ve done or when we did them (#OLD) and we’d all have to scroll back back back through photos on our phones to see what we did when…and with whom (the small group has a little fluctuation to it). But I figured it would be a good idea to add spending to it cuz that can get away from you so easily…”oh, i hardly spent any money this week,” when you really DID, you just FORGOT.


  • This was my “running out for a bagel on Saturday morning” outfit.
    Guess I could put the Christmas stockings away annnnnnny day now.

I also want to do like a…vision board journal book thing…(I can see my friend shaking her head right now). From age 18 to 25, I made these books. Sometimes with a friend, sometimes on my own. It was just things torn out of magazines (no internet then!) – pictures of clothes I liked, men/women actor/models I found attractive, decor, articles about relationships, life, DIY. I’d put phrases together a la ransom notes, stringing cut-out letters and words together – inspirational things, funny things, etc. I still have all those books (5 in total).

ANYWAY, I thought it would be cool to do a new kind of book. Start each month with a page or so of ideas, plans, goals, dreams for the month ahead…then scrapbook stuff from the things I actually did…a postcard from a museum, a picture of a meal from that restaurant by the water, my hair right after I got it cut, etc, so I’d have a visual memory book of all the things I did. It’s actually more of an “in hindsight” book than “vision board,” but…VB sounds better. It’s January 25 and I haven’t started it yet, but…the month’s not over yet.

Katie and The Boy are in Hawaii this week.

Just today (Saturday) I was working on clearing out the little hallway where the closets are and I came across some of the books and then I had to sit down and flip through them and remember things from my early 20s…like 35 years ago. Most of the stuff I still find appealing, interesting, funny.

  • When hallway is clear…
  • …I will put rolling rack there.
  • Did it!
  • Even straightened up the closet.

I’ve started juicing again. I get obsessed with it once I start. Did I already talk about this in last week’s review post? Once I make one, I crave it every day, all day. My normal blend is 1 pink grapefruit, 2 apples, 2 oranges, 3 carrots and a thumb of ginger (this makes two 12oz. mason jars-ful). It’s tangy, a little spicy and a little sweet. It is SO GOOD. I made a horrible video of me making it…I think I did that on Monday…but I haven’t pieced it together yet, and may never. Ha. I so long to be able to create good videos but they’re always so bad. Ha ha.

How have I never noticed before that my juicer looks like a stormtrooper??

THEN I learned about a phone app that scans slides. I have boxes and BOXES of slides from the 50s through the early 80s that my father took. Mostly from Japan and Italy when they and my sister lived there. My father used to set up the slide projector like once a year and we’d all sit and watch the big pictures on the white wall in the living room…but it was always over too soon…and was subject to what my father wanted to share. There are so many of these pictures I’ve never seen. It’s like I found my own little Vivian Maier stash!

So this app has been a fun tool – it doesn’t do a great job of producing a final image but they’re good enough that I can at least see what they’re of so I can decide what is worth paying to have scanned professionally and digitized. I’ve spent a lot of today (still Saturday!) scanning (over 400!) random slides and sharing them with my sister who is able to identify some of the places and people.

It’s been cool just seeing my father’s photography. Some of the pictures feel to me like something I’d have taken.

I love the contrast of the dull colors on the left with the bright fruit on the right.
That light on the people.
Laundry
What on earth is for sale in this shop??
XMAS SALE
Unnecssary Goods Wanted

I love this picture of my parents. I’ve mentioned here before of my mother’s love of all things Japanese from their time there; she brought back a lot of furniture and accessories. I’m not sure where they were living here, but they were having a Japanese dress-up party with friends. I have no real memory of my parents ever really liking each other, so…this picture is a real treasure to me.

That’s my mother, standing in the doorway far left…and my father pointing in the bottom right. Don’t they look happy??
I have no idea who these two are, but it looks like a fun party!

What I’m Reading

(I forgot to do this a couple times recently so this is several week’s catch-up)

The Sea by John Banville

Another “award winner” that I just don’t get. I read this several weeks ago and I honestly can’t remember a thing about it other than it being blah and forcing myself to get all the way through it. The best thing about it was the cover.

The Geography of Love: A Memoir by Glenda Burgess

Uhm. I have sort of mixed feeling about this one. I kept forgiving the author for it not being more beautifully written cuz “she’s not really a writer, this is just a memoir.” After I finished it I was reading some other reviews to see if I was alone in my feelings and discovered she is a writer! So, there’s that. It’s more a “life” story than a “love” story. You know where it’s going the whole time and the characters mostly seemed a little too good to be true. All that said, it’s not a bad story and the end did get me in the heart. Even knowing what was going to happen. 3.5+

Little Lovely Things by Maureen Joyce Connolly

Little Lovely Things: A Novel by [Connolly, Maureen Joyce]

This selection was a little outside my normal range but…the description intrigued me. I’m normally not a “thriller” reader…but this didn’t really feel thrillery to me. It was a truly a page-turner, one of those that if I’d had a whole day to devote to it I would have just stayed on the sofa and read it in one sitting. It’s not great literature to be sure but it’s a good compelling story. I recommend it with the caveat that there are parts that are disturbing. 3.79

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Hardly anything! I’m trying to spend more time reading and writing (and making spreadsheets!). But I DID watch the first episode of a new Netflix show called The Goop Lab

I’ve heard some criticisms of the show…as I’ve heard criticisms of Gwynneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand (company, shop, website) Goop before. “Oh she’s just an actress, what does she know about abc?” I don’t believe anyone is just any one thing. I’m a development associate at work, does that mean I can’t be passionate and active in photography, gardening, art? Does that mean I can’t also be a mother, blogger, animal lover?? People can certainly do one thing as their job or career, and be many other things at the same time. They can be extremely knowledgeable about things other than what they get paid for: politics, cooking, painting, yoga, anything. So right off the bat I wanted to give her new show a watch to make up my own mind.

The first episode was about healing (under medical and/or psychiatric care and supervision) with mind-expanding/psychedelic drugs. Now, I am not a believer. In anything. So I went into it feeling cynical about this houly-ghouly hippie new age stuff. But you know what? It makes sense. I mean, medically, there is actual evidence that they can help certain physical conditions (cancer being one). And for emotional issues, it makes sense! I mean, if I have a couple drinks, I certainly lose some of my tightly-wrapped inhibitions and say or ask things I wouldn’t normally say. Which, for someone who was keeping feelings so deeply buried, to their detriment, it could certainly help.

Anyway, the episode was very interesting – a small group of Goop staff went down to (I forget where they went – Jamaica? Someplace like that) to an institute dealing with these drugs, and they all took some mushrooms in a highly-controlled situation. You watched their “trips,” and they all said afterward that they felt better about whatever issue they had come about.

Each episode will be about a different topic, and they seem like interesting things, most of which I know very little about, so I look forward to them.

And THAT, my friends, is a wrap. WOW this was a long post, considering I didn’t really DO anything this week – other than in my mind.

My next post will be 7pm Tuesday instead of 5am Wednesday – the February edition of Match Made in Seven.

Byeee!