Free time activities, take two.

 So it's been almost 6 months to the day since I posted about the reorganization of my hobbies & free time. It went pretty well overall. I decided it's time to switch it up, with a few lessons learned:

1. 3 months is too short. 6 months seemed better, although I may need longer for some projects/hobbies.
2. I think it might be a good idea to have some specific goals for each hobby/project.
3. I have to be more realistic about the amount of time I actually have to do things, especially when I'm not including in my list things like roller derby, which take up an enormous amount of the free space I have in my week.
4. I need to “pay myself first” so to speak, with my time. I have a tendency to sign up to do extra tasks/activities and just generally put a lot on my plate, but I think this round I want to focus on sticking to the plans I make and only taking on extra stuff if it fits around my own goals.

    I made a giant list of possible hobbies I wanted to switch off to, but narrowed it down greatly. Also, I decided to add some things to this list which I originally didn't think of as hobbies, or stuff I needed to think of as free time activities but that I want to be doing on a regular basis. So for instance, even though roller derby and working out are hobbies and take up a big chunk of my time, I don't need to put them in a specific free time plan because they are already incorporated into my daily life. There are some things that I would like to be doing habitually and am not. So my list for this next round looks a bit more boring, but I'm actually quite pleased with it.

1. Cooking – I would like to be cooking more. I grab quick meals more than I'd like and also would like to get better at cooking. My goals are to cook at least 4 out of 7 dinners per week with at least one of those meals being a new recipe. To do this, I will need to make meal plans every week. Sunday's seem the easiest day to do this on. I tend to grab prepared meals on days where I'm working late and/or have practice so meal planning will allow me to see which days I'll need to prep ahead. 
2. Sewing – I'm carrying this hobby/activity over to this next round because I just want some more time with it. I want to be a bit more focused with this one as well. I was thinking I'd need to drop this and just substitute it with generic “crafting” as the holidays are approaching and I want to make hand-made gifts, but I think rather than have a sporadic number and type of gifts, I'll give only sewn (or possibly, cooked) gifts. I think it will make it easier to pick what I'm making for people and will also get me to practice some skills with sewing that maybe I wouldn't otherwise. So my general plan here is to map out the holiday presents I want to make and then make time to work on them for at least 2 hours every week, probably on weekends. I also want to pick out at least 3 projects for myself and get through those. This is a little less specific because I still need to sort through some project books, lists, etc.
3. Classes – There are a bunch of free college courses online that I've been toying with taking for a while now. I've taken bits and pieces of some on Coursera but I wanted to actually integrate them into a plan. So I'm picking one philosophy class on MIT's open course site and taking that. My plan will be to work on it at least 2 hours per week, likely on the weekend, and then I can add extra time as I feel like it.
4. Meditating – This is another activity where I want it to be just part of my daily life but it's not. I go in phases where it is, but I want it to be more integrated. I didn't add it to my original plan because I thought of it like working out; I don't always want to do it, but it's part of healthy living for me so I don't necessarily need to plan for it or think of it as something to do in my down time. Writing this now, I think it sounds a bit silly, like obviously I should have planned for it, but I think at the time I was meditating a more and felt like it was a non-issue. Also, I was more concerned with structuring my free/fun time. This time around I'm less interested in thinking about what I do for fun and more interested in what I do, period. And unlike working out, I don't already have a solid meditation practice in the way that I'd like. So my plan with this is to meditate for at least 15 minutes every morning, directly after having 2 cups of coffee. If I have less time in the morning, i.e. I've gotten up late or need to go to work early, then I get 0-1 cups of coffee first. I am putting this weird coffee rule in because I often tell myself I'm going to meditate as soon as I'm done with my coffee and then lo and behold I've run out of time and I need to go to work. Also, I've fallen into the habit of listening to a Buddhist talk or podcast over coffee and never actually going to meditate. I'm also hoping to taper my coffee drinking eventually but am not actively working on this yet. At least two mornings a week (probably Wednesday and Saturday) I'm going to do the morning sittings at the Zen Center. Which means on Tuesday night I need to make sure my clothes and food are ready for work.

    So that's it for my activity planning for right now. I stopped using a planner after nursing school and I'm going to use it again, at least for a bit, while I build these new habits/activities into my free time. Sometimes I think building new habits is a matter of remembering to do them so the planner will be useful. I'm thinking of setting the time frame on this round of activities to 6 months, but will extend the time based on whether or not the goals I set down were accomplished or not. 

Activities and Sloth

      A couple months ago I was looking at a half finished stuffed animal, a 3/4's finished bracelet, and multiple half read books. I was thinking about how I have a gazillion hobbies and I don't feel particularly skilled at any of them. I also often felt sort of restless with them. I'd wonder if I should finish up a book and then think, “no, but I was going to take that online Spanish class” and I'd end up feeling or being rather inert. Like I sort of know how to sew, and I can kind of make my own jewelry, and sometimes I'm decent at drawing depending on how much I practice, and I know a couple cords on the guitar, and like 50 phrases in ASL, etc. Then I became curious to see if anyone else has noticed this about themselves. I Googled something like “too many hobbies” and of course the internet was happy to tell me that yes, indeedly-do there are a lot of people out there who are wondering how they ended up with so many extracurriculars and what it meant to have a lot of half finished projects in your life.

    Most of the posts I read landed in one of two camps. The first and most dominant camp are those who believe that it's fine to have a million interests/hobbies and you should just let yourself do whatever you feel with them. After all, it's your free time, why feel it necessary to limit yourself? As one writer stated: “Try not to get hung up on completing things as the end goal of a particular hobby or interest...it's not a fun hobby anymore if you're only doing something just to get it over with. Sometimes having a bunch of half-finished projects lying around can be a bit of a source of guilt, but again...this stuff we do in our spare time is supposed to fun and fulfilling...” (link here). A lot of people in this camp hold one woman, Barbara Sher, as their champion. She wrote a book, “Refuse to Choose!” in which she discusses this very concept. She argues that rather than a problem, having this wide variety of interests and hobbies is really a gift and that those with this “problem” are actually unique, creative individuals. The most appealing conclusions I found coming from these writers is the notion of just enjoying the process of whatever you're doing and not focusing on the end result. This “journey not the destination” argument is compelling. I hold beliefs around the importance of process over end results, for sure. But I think there's a lot to be learned and gained from sticking through a process when it stops being all rainbows and butterflies. I think there's a way to still be process focused but also finish something. I get that it's my free time and the notion that I should enjoy doing whatever hobby I've chosen but there's going to be aspects I don't like about every hobby I choose. I love the act of sewing, I hate the cutting part. I love drawing, I dislike choosing what to draw. I guess my point is that the boring, infuriating, tedious, complicated parts of whatever activity I pick up are also part of the process or journey and I'm missing a huge chunk of learning if I bail on a project when I start to feel something unpleasant. I don't think that means I'm necessarily attached to the end result, but that I'm staying open to all aspects of the process at hand.

    The other camp, which I really didn't find too many people in, posited that this sort of activity jumping is a kind of laziness, or at least is not a quality people should cultivate in themselves. This camp's notions seemed best detailed in an article from 2008 in Cabinet magazine. Daniel Rosenberg wrote a piece entitled “The Young and the Restless”. He discusses a children's book from 1818 where a boy is able to do whatever activities he wants instead of going to school to prove to his parents that he can learn more about the world on his own. He ends up in complete disaster with nothing done. Rosenberg uses this book to discuss the term “sloth” and how it used to have more than one meaning. “Historically, sloth is a bipolar concept, signifying a kind of dissatisfaction that may be expressed equally through immobility or restlessness. And it was precisely to capture this ambivalence that the term was first adopted in Latin”. He spends a fair bit of time discussing the etymology of “sloth” and then discussing the book some more. He doesn't offer any solutions to this problem but the notion that this sort of restless activity jumping was a form of sloth really resonated with me. I definitely found myself in this camp.

   I made a list of all the activities I wanted to do or liked to do currently. (Here's a picture of my brainstorm next to a weirdly doodled heart).

      I decided I would conduct an experiment for myself to see if I felt more fulfilled and less restless with my free time, i.e. my time not at work, if I narrowed my focus for a few months. If on Saturday morning I found myself with a whole day of unstructured time ahead of me, I could pick from any of the few activities on my short list and do those as much or as little as I wanted. It was hard for me to think about crossing something off the list at first as it felt uncomfortable and limiting to narrow my scope. I decided I would pick 3 hobbies/activities plus reading and these would be my focus for 3 months. I figured that reading always be in the mix but decided to pick a topic or area that I'd be reading about for this time frame. So I landed on: sewing, drawing, and restorative justice tasks/activities. Part of my thought process was that by choosing just a few hobbies I could become more expert, or at least more skilled, in them. For instance, I've sewn a lot of projects but they've been very haphazard and I'm lacking a working knowledge of how to do some pretty simple, basic sewing techniques. Even things like cleaning my machine are sort of a mystery. I decided I would work through projects in a couple of the sewing books I have, even if I don't find the projects particularly exciting, I would go through them so that I could gain the basic skills I tried to leap frog with my sewing adventures in the past. For drawing, I decided I could work on any drawing projects I liked but if I felt like drawing and didn't know what to draw I would pick from a list here. I already had a lot of plans with some restorative justice groups in Rochester so it seemed like RJ had to be on the list as it was already taking up a lot of my spare time. For reading I decided I'd focus on classic literature first. There's a surprising number of classic lit books that I've never read and I've often thought about getting through some, but never do. I almost always opt for newer novels.

    I made this plan in the beginning of March so it's been about two months now. I think all in all the 3 month time frame is too short. Maybe something like 6 months before switching hobbies would be better. I'm not sure yet, I'm going to reassess at the end of May.

   The sewing hobby has gone well and by that I mean, I feel as though I'm becoming more skilled at it and I'm finding it more fulfilling. I've completed a number of projects that were more fun and turned out better than I was expecting. Two of my favorites are a Star Wars apron I made for my step-mom and a comic book themed clutch:

   Drawing has taken a back seat – I really haven't worked on it too much. I don't really have much of a feeling about this other than maybe it makes more sense to just pick two hobbies. I'll ponder this more at the end of May.

    I haven't been thinking about RJ stuff as a hobby although it's probably taken up most of my free time during the week. I'm working on several transition circle cases at Monroe Correctional Facility and am now part of a working group planning for trainings on restorative practices for life time inmates at Attica. I have wondered during this time if I should have made my reading material choice focused on restorative practices, but I think this would have left me feeling like it was too much of one thing. I've also already done a huge amount of reading on this topic as it was a main focus of mine in graduate school.

    The classic lit activity is going well, albeit slowly. I'm finishing up Crime and Punishment at the moment, which I've found both exasperating and enjoyable. I'll be reading the Great Gatsby next. Again, I'm wondering if 3 months is too short of a time frame. Also, I didn't really have an end goal here – like how many classic lit books did I want to have read? I guess I didn't pick an end goal because I didn't care, I figured I'd just keep at it until the three months were up. I've also found that I really didn't stick to my original plan with reading, unlike the other activities. I've read a lot of other books during this time that were not classic lit and I think most of them have been on my phone. I'm fine with this. I wasn't particularly concerned with narrowing my reading scope, more like spending time accomplishing some reading goals that I put off for some reason. I don't know if I ever would have read Crime and Punishment if I hadn't made this plan and I'm quite glad to have read it (almost).

    Overall, I do think this has been a helpful or useful experiment for me so far. I feel less restless with spare time, more focused, more fulfilled, more mindful of what I'm doing. Of course, some of this could also be because I'm meditating way more but I think I'm enjoying this more planful approach to my activities. 

Pain.

      I'm about to go on a 3 day soup bender. Maybe it can be shorter, if I have a good combo of luck and hard work.

     I was driving home from St. Paul Street – I'm not going to explain why and I could feel that tooth in my mouth start to hurt. It starts as a somewhat nonspecific pain. A throbbing raw feeling on the right side of my mouth where, if I didn't already know exactly what's going on over there, I wouldn't be able to tell if it was emanating from my upper or lower jaw. By the time I'm pulling into a parking spot to my apartment building in Penfield, the pain has localized itself with razor precision and is clearly radiating out from the one culprit of a tooth. At this point, I'm keeping my face very still. If I accidentally breathe air in through my mouth, the little Mussolini in the back of my face hole might reward me with a tiny dagger of extra pain. If I make the mistake of smiling at some stray thought or cloud or old couple holding hands on a walk I may spend the next 10 seconds wincing. I walk into my apartment, drop my bags and make a beeline for the bathroom where an industrial sized bottle of ibuprofen waits for me. I don't even take off my shoes which is huge. I always take off my shoes. Not because I care about the shape of my carpet but because I really effing hate shoes and one of my all-time favorite feelings is taking them and my socks (those little bastards), off and feeling the ground. But nope, not this time. Boots stay on as I toss back 600mg with a shot of melted ice water from last night. I don't even care.

     I spend the next 15 minutes doing some dishes and then heating up soup. I'm super hungry and chewing equals misery right now. I know enough not to chew on the side of my face that hurts, even after the ibuprofen kicks in. Because I've favored that side all week, the left side of my mouth has little stab wounds all over it from trying to masticate without being fully equipped. The biggest problem over there with left-y is a cut under my tongue that gets scraped if I move that bad boy around too much. This makes chewing even soft foods seem just not worth the effort. I heat up a can of soup and seriously consider blending it because the chunks of potatoes are looking a little suspect. Like they may require the movement of my mouth to break them up and that seems like mission impossible right now. Somewhere in my head I think that I'm not supposed to put hot foods in the blender though and, at the moment, hunger is beating pain in the uncomfortable feelings octagon. So I'll risk the extra tongue damage.

     So now I'm thinking about this tooth and the emotional baggage and learning opportunities it's presenting to me this past week and right this very moment. The first lesson has to do with pain in general. If I'm meditating and something hurts or itches, I breathe into it, if that makes sense. Like, I move my breath over there and just really let myself feel whatever that feeling is. In some ways, I might consider it a gift because a good annoying itch can do wonders to snap me back to the present moment. This practice has taught me some degree of steadfastness. I can just sit here and feel this tooth. And in fact, if I don't check in with and acknowledge this pain frequently, like I failed to do yesterday, it seems to have some sort of cumulative negative effect on me. I felt totally cranky and miserable yesterday and it took me a hot minute to realize it was because I'd just had constant pain all day. Where as today, my tooth still super duper hurts, but I've just been acknowledging it and letting myself feel it all day instead. This obviously doesn't mean I'm not taking painkillers for it because, clearly, I am. But without going into too much detail, the pain can oscillate and if I've been a couple hours without it, I may be somewhere without oral analgesics and I'm not interested in staying on a 24 hour pain control regimen. Anyway, in some ways then, I'm kind of grateful for this pain, it is of the #7/10 variety in terms of dental pain (I rate other pain outside of my mouth on an entirely different scale). It's pretty bad, but not the worst I've had. I don't get to feel pain like this very often. I bump and bruise myself playing roller derby or being clumsy, but that sort of pain doesn't touch this feeling. So it's a really good opportunity to work with a feeling I don't get to work with very often.

     This little dude in my mouth also has a bunch of emotional baggage for me, weirdly. I didn't get all my adult teeth and I didn't get to keep many of the ones I have. This guy is one of my only guys left that meets up with a buddy to chew. I'm hoping the reason he hurts is because I just had him drilled and then capped with a crown and the nerve and gums are settling. But what it could be is that not everything was taken care before the crown was placed, I have an infection, and I may lose the tooth. This has happened every time I've gotten a crown. It makes me really sad to think this. In fact, I'm tearing up typing this because I just don't want to face this reality. I can't really chew carrots anymore unless they're cooked, which, let's face it, is disgusting outside a good curry. I look at people in awe when they eat those little crackers topped with stuff at parties. Bagels feel like an exercise in futility or a waiting game while my mouth enzymes go to town and it dissolves. This little dude is like my last bastion of hope or something. Every year at Christmas I joke that I want dentures only it's not really a joke. I can barely chew anymore and it's not because of something I did. I didn't do meth, I didn't get in a bunch of fights in a hockey game, I brush my teeth religiously, I floss like a boss (at least my gums are amazing). It's genetic and complicated but this is the mouth I have and right now it can't do much, but I'm bummed thinking about what it soon won't be able to do. Dental implants are VERY expensive and not covered by insurance. The teeth I have are too little to structurally support bridge work. My dentist said implants are really it for me and we can do a payment plan and just do like one tooth a year. I feel ungrateful considering this because that means it will probably be at least three years before I can really chew again, especially if I lose this bad boy back there, and that just feels so long. On the other hand, I know, it's only three years, it's not the end of the world and I'll get used to what I have to do to eat.

So I'm in this weird place right now of just trying to both be ok with feeling bummy about my mouth and also not wallow in it. I'm not the worst person off, by any stretch of the imagination! I have dental insurance, I have a job, I'm smart and I can figure out how to cook and get nutrients sans much mastication. But I also think it's a good idea to go ahead and mourn the loss of chewing carrots. Food is important and it's fun and I just don't get to participate in it's consumption like I used to and like most people can. I'm going to go ahead and feel bummed out and temper it with the reality that it could be a lot worse and it might get better. I actually feel a bit better just processing some of this “on paper” so to speak.

     Here's to a three day soup bender while I let my poor mouth rest and heal! 

Thoughts on a peace circle

          I facilitated two circles this past week and they both led to some pretty strong emotions and sometimes dramatic actions from participants. I think I just want to unpack one of them here. I had a circle at Monroe Correctional Facility with a woman and her family and despite my efforts to not have expectations, I was expecting it to go poorly.

Hello again.

It's been a while. I've decided to change the theme of this blog; although, the title still feels fitting to me. For quite a while now, I've been keeping a journal in which I reflect on my own struggles with attempting to live openly and nonviolently. I decided to move that process here for the occasional feedback I may get. A lot of what I've written has to do with using my everyday, often boring, circumstances to see where I'm struggling with principles I try to uphold, like truthfulness and nonaggression. These little events and moments are my buffalo. All I have to work with is what I'm given right now. 

um, a little late.

Yeah yeah, I know. It's been over a year since I've posted anything. Can we just ignore that and get to the meat of this post?

I'm currently not studying for finals and instead making a list of holiday gifts I will be (mostly) making and giving. Here's a cool link that I looked at last year but did not actually utilize. I'm on the fence about pledges, ultimatums, promises, etc. in general, but I like the spirit behind this buy handmade pledge so I'm using it this year.

I really want to post about what i'm making people for Christmas and other holiday presents but I'm going to hold off on the off chance that someone may still be reading this....

Anyway, one more week of school for this semester and then I have a bit of a break - wish me luck!

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

In honor of Buy Nothing Day, here are a few videos and links:

An advertisement for Buy Nothing Day from last year:


A quick trailer of Kids + Money:

"kids + money" by Lauren Greenfield (trailer) from INSTITUTE on Vimeo.


An extended preview of Kids + Money. I've got the whole thing if anyone would like to borrow it:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/12/13/magazine/1194817108554/kids-money.html

Rev. Billy Talen on Buy Nothing Day:

gift season part 1 - where to buy.

   It's been a solid two months since I've posted. I knew working and schooling full time would be a tricky endeavor, but I may have underestimated just how much of a time suck it would become. When I'm not at work it's pretty much a guarantee that I'm at school, clinical, or doing homework. So, clearly my crafting has taken a backseat. I have plenty o' homework to be doing right now but I really wanted to post something about holiday gift giving before the arrival of black Friday.

   A couple weeks ago I was talking with some friends over dinner and one of them expressed his concern about making all his own gifts for Christmas. Basically, he really wants to give gifts, doesn't want to get things from the mall, but feels uncomfortable making his own because he might not have the time, creativity, or skill set. Myself and others told him about some alternatives that he just had no idea about it and it struck me that maybe others would like to know about these options as well.

Messenger Bag, Take 2.

  Sorry to the few friends who read this for taking so long to post! It's been a busy few weeks - full time school and full time work have made my schedule tight! In any event, I thought I'd write a quick note on back to school supplies.
  A little bit ago I posted about a laptop bag I'd attempted to make. It turned out well but I wasn't a huge fan of the way it looked. It was a little too matchy-matchy for me. So I attempted a "new" bag, made out of cargo pants and some bizzaro space alien fabric I had on hand. Without making this an instructional post, I basically cut apart some cargo pants and sewed them so that I created a tube with a flap and lined the tube with the alien fabric. Then, I created a strap out of the top of some jeans. There's got to be an official, sewing name for the top of pants. Sadly, my knowledge of fancy sewing terms is limited to "placket". Regardless, it's the bit at the top where the buttons and belt loops are. It's really thick, reinforced material so I thought it would make a good strap. The bag is completed except for this one component that I'm having trouble finding - it's a metal piece that would make the straps adjustable. I have only had a chance to check one store, but if I don't find it, I'll settle on using some D rings I have kicking around. Here are a couple pics of the bag in various stages:

   This bag got me thinking a little bit about why exactly it was that I disliked the original messenger bag I'd made. I realized that I like for things to look homemade. I like the recycled/repurposed aesthetic. In the same way that I do not enjoy walking into Target or the mall and seeing 500 things that look the same, I don't like looking at my own work and thinking it looks like I could have bought it in the store. The vast majority of the time, this isn't a problem. I am horrible at sewing. I'm lazy with crafts. I am idea and not skill driven when it comes to making things and it shows in my end products. So this aesthetic problem isn't one I grapple with very often. I have to wonder - is this some sort of backwards elitism? Do I want to prove to myself and others that I'm not wearing something that came from a store? It could be, I wouldn't put it past me. I think I do genuinely like more thrown together looking items. Made with love but not necessarily with the latest issue of Vogue in mind. I'm sure that like most things, the answer is somewhere in the middle. I am both being an elitist about craftivism and also honestly enjoy a certain type of style. I do think it warrants more reflection. I'm sure there's a sort of elitist component to my thinking/feeling on this and if that's indeed the case, I am compelled to root it out. I find elitism in myself, and the mental baggage that comes with it, far more distasteful than overpriced clothing articles. 

  

Money Spent.

     Unfortunately, I feel this post may be a bit boring. It mostly has to do with what I've spent money on lately so if you're not into that sort of thing, I'd skip this. Ok, preface out of the way...

    The past two weeks my bank account has seen a lot of action. All the money I've thrown around lately has seemed both oddly necessary and profusely irritating.

     To begin with, I am starting the clinical portion of a nursing program this fall. Nevermind that this will be my second bachelor's degree (and the first was a double major), and that I also have a Master's degree. Let me put aside the enormity of money borrowed in my somewhat academically redundant “career” and whine here about the cost of books. This, I know, is a very tired complaint but holy canoli batman I have never spent this much on books before. Not to mention the other gear needed for nursing – stethoscope, scissors, etc. Typically, I beg, borrow, and stalk online book sellers for school books but for various reasons, these options were not available to me this semester so I am out a month and half's worth of rent. 

    The other major-ish purchase I've made recently was for a work related event. I work as a sociotherapist for Hillside Children's Center and this week I was assigned to be a staff member at some amusement park events. In order to hang out with the kids in the water park I needed a one piece bathing suit, which I didn't own. No one in my immediate vicinity seemed to have one so I purchased one from Dick's. This was after going to Target only to discover that they weren't selling one-pieces. While at Target I also picked up a new sports bra. I run a lot and consider this an essential part of my wardrobe. Wanting to avoid purchasing from a company that may or may not be using shady business practices, I grabbed a bra made by Champion. I felt fine about this because I knew that Champion products are made in the US and even better, close to Rochester. Nope! Wrong on both counts, I discovered while cutting tags at home. The Champion factory I was thinking of shut down ages ago and my new article was made in the Dominican Republic. Ok, it may not be a sweatshop situation in the DR – but it's definitely not local. This, combined with my arduously long process of trying and subsequently failing to find a bathing suit that was first made in America and secondly, if possible, affordable, left me wanting to spend some serious time searching around online to try to find places to buy both items in the future. I say wanting because I'm working a crazy amount currently (to pay for the above mentioned books) and haven't had much time to myself. I found some websites that list companies that are all American made but I'm not going to put up their web addresses until I'm sure they're not promoting distasteful things like vague xenophobia.

     I'm not sure to what extent I could have avoided these shopping pitfalls. If I had known farther in advance about the work trip I probably could have borrowed a bathing suit. I definitely could have avoided the sports bra issue if I had done some more research before buying it. While I really did think it was made somewhat locally, it was still a bit of an impulse buy – something I try to avoid.  

    The other small bit of reflection I was taking away from these purchases had to do with the shopping experience itself. I felt really uncomfortable being in Target. And because my brain is the victim of two double shifts and an overnight I will list these irritants without much eloquence or explanation: the lighting was bothersome, the popcorn smell made me want to buy their popcorn, I was surrounded by cute disposable clothing that I had trouble not wanting to buy, the selections are overwhelming, and their prices are cheap. I realize now that besides the lighting, my list has to do with my own annoyance at myself for wanting to buy all this "hot bright trash". But I don't know that my annoyance with myself is really worthwhile. I like fashion as it relates to art (whatever that means) and Target tries to make clothes that are fashionable. I don't like looking like everyone else, buying things I don't need, or purchasing from companies that make products in ethically dubious ways. So I can like the way some clothes look and not buy them. But I think when I'm actually in the situation - when I'm standing in that clothing bonanza in Target - the decision not to buy can feel hard. And I guess that's a little disappointing to me. I would love for it to always be easy. I intellectually want to not want overly salted popcorn strategically placed by an entryway and mass produced in Thailand cotton tees that will be ill fitting within a month. But I do sometimes and really, I think that's ok. 

Things Made...

I realized this morning that I've been posting far more about shopping/consumerism dilemmas than I have about stuff I'm making. In an effort to remedy that, here are a few pics of stuff I've made in the last two weeks.

Just a plain white tea that I stenciled on.

More button earrings and a weird sculptural string barrette. It looks a lot better on than it does in the pic. 

I needed a messenger bag for my laptop. This was made entirely of scrap fabrics. A year ago-ish, I made a mei tai baby carrier for a co-worker (example) and had a fair bit of leftover fabric. There's tons of super convenient pockets and it's lined with a cute green print. Unfortunately, I really don't like this bag. It's just not my style. Luckily my roommate (who happens to have a sweet blog) likes it, so it's hers now! I'm planning on making a new one sometime before school starts from old cargo pants. 

I'm experimenting with making up my own cheap-o frames that can be taped to the wall because the new house has some very unmanageable plaster making it really difficult to hang pictures with actual frames. I actually like how these turned out but I may try something else next. 

Finally, a pic of the current design on the chalkboard wall in our rec room. 

The problem with compliments.

   In my last post I wrote about my conflicting thoughts and feelings regarding purchase parties, as I've been calling them - those parties in which you are invited to someone's home and then they sell you something, jewelry, makeup, etc. This past week, my house-mate and I had maybe the opposite sort of party, a swap night. Swap nights, just as the name implies, are get togethers in which the guests all bring items that they feel may be useful to others but are no longer useful to them. Often, it's a clothing swap. Our guests were invited to bring anything they'd like. I didn't have a lot of clothing to swap so most of what I had to offer were a plethora of dishtowels and some other kitchen odds and ends. Perhaps I shouldn't call this sort of party the "opposite" of the purchase parties since I'm still going to them or hosting them with the intent to receive items. In any event, it went well. I had a lot of fun and to my surprise people actually wanted my dishtowels. The few friends that came were generous enough to bring a lot of food and after we were done digging through each other's cast offs we settled in to some great snacks and some fun discussions regarding small scale revolutions.
  The only hitch in the evening, and I'm not really sure hitch is the right word here, was due to an exchange I had with my mom who stopped by near the end of the get together. She pulled out a small box that I recognized as being from the previous week's jewelry party and gave it to me. When I asked her what it was she told me she got me one of the necklaces that I liked from the catalog at the party. I opened it and sure enough, I did remember pointing it out. It was really nice of my mom to get me this necklace. She loves me and knows I love jewelry and that I don't have a lot of disposable income - so from her perspective this was a sweet gift. There are a lot of reasons that I don't want products from parties like the one I mentioned in the last post - I don't know where the materials came from, if they were produced ethically, and I'd rather support local artists, to name a few. Yet, I ended up with one of these necklaces because 1) I wasn't clear with my mom or others about my thoughts and 2) I expressed some sort of desire for something that I didn't really want.
   This gift reminded me of a conversation I had a couple months ago. I was teaching a program on DIY culture and crafting at a camp and I shared with the campers that I often have reservations about complimenting people on things such as new shoes, clothes, and bags. I feel weird about these compliments for a couple reasons. Often, these compliments are reflexive for me - I will have noticed something new and automatically spit out my approval. It has occurred to me that the compliment often has more to do with the newness of the item rather than some sort of aesthetic value. If I've seen one new pair of brightly colored Nike's, I've seen them all so why say, "Oh! I like your new shoes"? Anytime I am speaking without intention I think it is a good opportunity for me to pause and figure out why. Beyond the verbal reflex problem though, is the fact that I really don't like those new items 95% of the time. I know many of the products I'm complimenting are manufactured in ways that I find unethical and would rather not support. But when I compliment them, I support them - it's just with my words and not my money. And in the case of the necklace, I ended up supporting the company selling it through both my words and my mom's money.
   So, here's where I'm landing on this for now: I will be working on being more intentional with my words (an ongoing and long process) and I will compliment things that I really do find beautiful, both because of there aesthetic value and because they came to my eyes through good ethical processes.

"Parties"

  The past several years I have been invited to an increasingly large number of parties in which the host or hostess's main intention is to sell me something. Typically, I turn down these invites. The parties are almost always for items that I neither need nor want, but occasionally I find myself attending one of these events for a variety of reasons. This was the case this past Wednesday and I wanted to spend a little time reflecting on what these parties mean to me.

  One of the first things that stands out to me about these parties is the intense feeling of obligation to buy that they seem to illicit in their attendees. Well, maybe I ought to just speak for myself here - if I'm not checking in with myself while at one of these shindigs then it is pretty easy for me to feel obligated to purchase something. I think this feeling comes from a few different factors. To begin with, they're always at a relative or close friend's house where they are not only being kind enough to open their doors to me, but also, usually, providing food and beverages. This sets up in myself a desire to "return the favor" as it were, by buying whatever it is they're selling. (**Sidenote** - this reminds me of a book I read for an anthropology class called The Poison in the Gift.) I think I also feel obligated to buy because while I'm in the person's living room, surrounded by fancy products, friendly faces, good food, etc. I get a general feeling of warmth and camaraderie. I feel the bonding of the group and then I want to be a part of that group - and it seems like to be a part of this group, I need to buy something, because after all, that's what we're all there for. So to not buy at one of these parties means fighting both the completely normal culturally driven desire to return hospitality and the urge to join in a group.  From my perspective that's some tough cultural baggage to put aside.

   Ultimately, I don't have a big problem saying "no" to buying at these parties. Often I've prefaced my attendance by letting the host(ess) know that I won't be spending any money. This past week I also had an opportunity to check in with myself aloud because the hostess invited us to ask any questions we had about the product - in this case jewelry. I asked where it was made and she answered that most of it was made in China and Thailand. That was a good way for me to remind myself about why I don't want to be buying items from these parties. This coming weekend there is a craft show on a nearby street and if I'm going to buy jewelry I'd like it to be from a local artisan who I can actually interact with (link).

   I wonder what value or purpose these parties hold for me really? Should I keep attending them? This week I went because I like to see all the people that were going to be in attendance and I didn't want to seem unfriendly or dismissive of the hostess. But is this enough of a reason? I'm not sure. As I'm writing, I'm leaning towards no.  I still feel like I'm somehow supporting these businesses by going to the parties. I'm supporting them with my presence. It's like I'm saying, "well, I'd buy something if I could, but I'm broke". I am broke, but that's not why I'm not buying.  I think maybe a better option in the future might be to explain thoughtfully to the host why I won't be attending and then make a bigger effort to host events that involve the same people and are not focused on buying/selling.

Also, and maybe finally, I think part of the reason my friends and family want to host these events is because a lot of us really are lacking reasons to gather. So much of our society is focused on shopping in one way or another that it can seem like the only valid reason to spend time together is if it has to do with spending money. But there are so many things to do besides going to the mall or a movie or exchanging currency. Maybe it's time for me to make a bigger effort with my loved ones to spend time engaging with them in things that I find valuable. I'd hate for them to feel like we need to spend money in order to spend time.

Painting and Accessorizing

  The past week or so I've done my fair share of both buying and making. Most of what I bought was to be used for the making of something else. Having just moved into a house, I've purchased a few things focused on home improvement, primarily painting supplies. I decided I wanted to have one wall in one of the rooms covered in chalkboard paint.

travel mugs and craft books

  To begin with, I have spent A LOT of money the last few days. Most of this has gone towards moving costs though, so I’m not going to spend much time on that here. The biggest expenses were renting a moving truck and hiring movers (because despite my sizeable guns, I just cannot manage my ridiculous wooden furniture). Beyond that, my only superfluous purchases involved pizza and vodka for myself, Jason, and Amanda after a long day of packing. Both were purchased at local shops at least.

  Prior to leaving for Baltimore I did have a shopping purchase that I’d like to reflect on here. The first was a reusable cup. On my way to an orientation for a new job, I realized I was really thirsty and forgot to bring a water bottle. I stopped at Wegmans and spent about ten minutes trying to decide whether or not to buy a bottle of water or buy a cup to put water in. In the end, I decided purchasing the cup would be better. As it is, I now I have one travel mug, one Nalgene water bottle and one reusable cup. I’m going to try to keep it that way. Buying that cup did make me think a little bit about how even purchasing what is intended to be reusable and sustainable items becomes, well, not that. I have a lot of friends with loads and loads of Nalgene bottles. Or close ones with 10 travel mugs. We, myself included, feel really justified with these purchases because the items are reusable. But why am I buying something if I already have it? Because it looks cool? Because I want to buy something? Because I’m too lazy to wash out the other five travel mugs sitting in my car? At some point, I have been guilty of all these excuses and probably more. At the end of the day, I still bought another reusable item that’s real cute, but I don’t need. I am happy that I reflected a bit on it before the purchase was made, but pretty soon I will need to bridge the gap from reflection to (in)action and not buy stuff on a whim. The bottom line is that I will always have a justification for not buying something – or for that matter, I will always have a justification for not acting in accordance with how I want to be.

  Today, I am happy and pained to say, I did not buy something that I really really wanted to buy. On our way home from returning the Penske truck I’d been driving, Jason wanted to stop at Barnes and Noble for some dvd’s he’d had his eye on. Anyway, as per usual, I gravitated towards the craft/sewing section of the store and was drooling over a crochet book. I just recently learned to crochet and really wanted to buy this book as it had a lot of cool patterns, ideas etc. But here’s the deal – part of what was really fun about learning to hook was that a really awesome person taught me. He was great at explaining what to do, was really excited that I wanted to learn, and then (I think) felt sort of accomplished and proud of himself for teaching someone else a great skill. I don’t have access to that person now, as he lives sort of far, but I do have access to both my mom and step-mom who both crochet and would LOVE to spend the time teaching me how to make whatever my crazy brain comes up with. It’s an opportunity to engage and bond with other really cool people rather than dole out some more cash to an author I don’t know. So, I didn’t buy the book. And, oddly/awesomely, when I got home I went to see Bonnie (step-mom) and she had crocheted some examples of granny-squares for me because she knew I wanted to learn how to make them.

starting off

    To put it simply - I would like to shop less and create more. I'm making this blog to help me along this path because:

a) I think making a blog will help to hold me accountable to my goals if both strangers and those closest to me are following my process.

b) I'm interested in sharing ideas with others and this seems like a great format with which to do so. 

   In general, what I'm going to try to do is shop as little as possible for items that are not necessary for survival. I already follow this rule to some extent, but I guess I'd like to get just a little bit more hard core about it. When I do need to shop, I'd like to follow some guidelines:
1. Shop Locally/Avoid Malls - I'm not going to launch into any long tirades about big box stores or the death of the American Main Street. But I do believe that working on the community level is the best way to affect positive change. Also, mall shopping depresses me and dries out my eyes, bleh!
2. Honesty - Maybe this point ought to come first. I'd like to be as open and honest about this process as possible. No matter how embarrassing or ill conceived my shopping (mis)adventures may be, I'd like to be truthful about them. I really would like to learn from this process and I cannot expect any possible readers of this blog to contribute to my journey if I'm not giving you the whole story.
3. Question - If I do feel I need to buy something that's typically not necessary for survival I am going to try to spend some amount of time honestly reflecting on why I am buying the item and whether or not I would be able to make it myself.

  That's it for the lists (for now). I'm off to clean up my room and make some things out of garbage. I killed the buffalo, it's time I use it.