Happy Friday!

Where did the last week go? We were doing so well with posting, too. We didn’t mean to disappear, we just got busy again! It always amazes me how fast time flies — and then there are people who can actually post to blogs daily, and people worry if they skip a couple of days…? I’m lucky if I post once a week. Trying for better.

Links of note:

• Daycraft Diaries and a giveaway! If I weren’t deeply attached to my current planner (yeah, I totally died on the part 2 of that. is there any interest? or should I shelve it?), I would definitely enter this giveaway. But you should too. I love sharing the paper love.
• Why Americans Don’t Act on Climate Change. Interesting article—I know I do more climate-related things that are related to finances than anything else (i.e. saving electricity and switching to “green” cleaners).
• make do and mend is an interesting blog I found today with some letter-writing and art-related posts.

Idea for the week: Imagine your life as a vacation. How different is it from your current life?

And a little Beauty and Joy:

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!

I’m thinking I need a routine, as in: this is what I post on this day of the week. Let’s start with Fridays. Happy Fridays. (I may or may not be stealing part of today’s format from a life of photographoe.)

Links of note:

• DIY Postcard Swap—can you believe I didn’t find this until YESTERDAY? If I had found it sooner, you know I would have been there in an instant. So now I’m considering hosting a Lunsh.net version. Would anyone be interested in a mini-DIY-postcard swap? Nothing too fancy, but an excuse to send mail and dress it up to the best of our abilities.
• hello tenfold: fun stationery. (You know, to write those thank-yous and letters to your representatives to!)
• Charity: Water — Can you believe I donated to this last summer and had meant to post about it? That worked out well, ha. Considering how much I worry about my family in California and drought conditions there, I figured I should support much less fortunate people who hardly have any water at all. Maybe you want to too.

Idea for the week: Have fun. Laugh. Smile.

And this week’s Beauty and Joy picture:

So: Have a happy Friday!

The Power of Letters

Stephanie and I have talked a lot about the way letters can improve communication with your friends, but I want to talk a little bit about how letters are very powerful for getting the things we want. I feel like people completely forget letters when it comes to enacting change within a community, and yet they still remain today as one of the most powerful tools for getting what you want.

I was reading an article about how Michelle Obama is trying to combat child obesity through a new program specially designed to provide children with nutritious lunches, show ways to get outside and get active, and encourage parents and children both to take an active role in nutrition. It was a pretty good article, and I think Mrs. Obama’s heart is in the right place. However, one of the comments was a little sad for me. It went something like this:

Thank goodness the government is finally doing something! Last week I couldn’t find a particular healthy food item in my grocery store, and I was told to look in the nutrition section, but they didn’t have it there, either. Can you believe it? I hope things start to change now.

Really? You couldn’t find an item in your grocery store, so you’re going to sit back and wait for the government to do something? When did we as a nation begin to have this mentality, instead of taking matters into our own hands and writing a letter (or emailing, or calling)? I don’t like how many laws there are in this country, and maybe you don’t either, or maybe you do, but the fact is, it’s much more efficient to actually tell someone, “This is what I want” instead of waiting for Washington (which is notoriously slow and ineffective) to do something about it.

Letters are very powerful, and most people don’t even consider them to be an option much of the time. Dissatisfied with service? You could grumble about it, or you could wait for the government to step in and realize that this particular company has bad business practices (which will take FOREVER), or you could write a letter, an email, or make a phone call and TELL them. Want an item in your local grocery? Write them a letter and tell them. Want your community to put in a red light somewhere? Go to a board meeting, or write your mayor a letter.

It’s effective, and it often WORKS. It’s amazing because we tend to think of letters as being slow, but people do read them, and people will take into account what you have to say. Letters are effective simply because they take an effort to send – they often come across as more sincere than an email, and they’re more tangible than a phone call. Your letter can make a difference. It’s actually really cool.

Here are some links so that you can utilize the power of your pen (warning, most of these are US-oriented simply because that’s where I live):

• Urgent Action Network – Write letters to world leaders to help achieve peace in all countries.
• Any Soldier and Soldiers’ Angels’ Letter Writing Team – Write letters and send care packages to soldiers overseas
• Write Your Representative – Write a letter to your Representative to let him/her know what you want
• Write to your Senator – Write a letter to your Senators to let them know what you want

Also I encourage you to write to businesses and your local government near you. Nobody will ever know what your ideas are unless you tell them.

Skeleton Boots!

I don’t normally share things like this, but I can’t resist. A few weeks ago I bought a pair of Doc Martens that I just love to death (although I didn’t know they were in Guitar Hero before I bought them). These things are the most amazing shoes in the universe, and except for a painful breaking-in period, I’ve been wearing them nearly every day. They’re also great because it’s been raining/cloudy nearly every day since 2010 began, so it’s nice to have warm and dry boots.

Do you have a pair of shoes you wear every day? If so, what are they? What types of shoes do you love?

Let there be light

Thanks for all the comments on my last post! Most of you understood what I was trying to say, so I’m feeling a little better about communication.

Becky and I keep talking about candles lately, so I wanted to show you a picture of some of my candles to help you understand. This is one corner of my room. I walked in around 4pm and thought, brrr, why am I in Minnesota again? Then I remembered my candles, that I keep thinking about them and how they’re supposed to be warm and cosy. So I lit two candles.

A few minutes later my room felt so much warmer, and the threat of a never-ending winter seemed not quite so close.

Achieving a richer culture

I have to admit that I was disappointed by the comments on the thank you post. Perhaps I was naïve to expect that everyone would agree with me—the letter-writing proponents don’t hang around here very often, after all. But it’s a good chance to open up discussion, and I do love discussion. (By the way, if you haven’t noticed you can reply to others’ comments in the comments section, and Becky and I will be doing the same in order to have more of a back-and-forth conversation with you all. )

Becky argued that, because we have all these new methods of communication (text messages, e-mails, Facebook), people don’t write and mail cards and notes. It’s too easy to send an e-mail or Facebook message. True. However, the next step after letting ourselves become too lazy to mail a card is to become too lazy to write an e-mail. Once everything became instant, it seems like people began to hold communication in less importance and stopped trying to communicate with others on a deeper level. Collectively we began to believe that because you check your Facebook and read everyone’s status messages every day means you know what’s going on in your friends’ lives. Except, without actually talking to those friends, you don’t know at all what’s going on. When we adopted “easier” (perhaps it’s more specific to say “instant”) methods of communication, we took it to mean that we didn’t need to communicate as we had been. We’re friends on Facebook, so why do I need to send her a message in addition to that?

For me, that’s a problem. I don’t enunciate my thoughts nearly as well in conversation as in writing, and I don’t think many people like to talk about what’s really important to them. Writing it out is one thing, but actually saying it aloud is another, and I really appreciate getting to know what’s important to my friends. Things come up in letters and long e-mails that you wouldn’t necessarily throw in a conversation. But with the lack of people taking advantage of these mediums of conversation, we lose a deeper connection to each other, a deeper understanding of each other, something I don’t want to lose.

I also worry that this lack of meaningful communication with others has led many people to stop caring about the other people in the world. If all we ever talk about is that we’re doing laundry, or chillin’, eating a burrito, why should anyone care about what we have to say? From 140 characters on Twitter to communicating via status message on Facebook, I’ve started to believe that this method of shortened communication has desensitized people to the needs of others. If you’re not forced to elaborate on your thoughts, it reinforces our natural laziness to the point that we really don’t care about others. We should instead be vigilant to how we treat people so that we really do care about getting to know them and accept others as they are, and then they will accept and care for us too.

Thoughts? Comments? Discussion? We’re all ears eyes!

*Title “inspired” by this quotation

Lunch!

It may come as no surprise that I love lunch. It’s such an awesome meal of the day, one that I think most people don’t pay enough attention to. It’s really funny how everyone focuses so much on dinner, but not lunch or breakfast, and end up eating out or binging. It’s sad, because breakfast and lunch (especially lunch!) are just awesome. Breakfast is perfect for things like pancakes, breakfast burritos, oatmeal (!!!), fruit, and the best food ever, potatoes. Lunch opens up all new opportunities! Hate breakfast food? Make dinner food! In the mood for breakfast food? You can do that too!

I know it’s weird to ramble on about food, but I was thinking about how much better a day can be when you have a really good lunch to look forward to and eat. Lately I’ve been craving salads – salads with oil and vinegar, salads with croutons, but especially salads with Cashew Tamari Dressing, which unfortunately is a local staple of Austin (if you do live in Austin though, check Fresh Plus in Hyde Park or Whole Foods downtown!). I love the flavor of it – it’s basically oils with cashew, and it’s sweet and savory. Combine that with the slightly bitter flavor of spring lettuce and grapefruit juice, and you’ve got a winning combination.

I love vegetables. Most of you already know, but I’m a vegetarian for environmental reasons. The production of beef especially pollutes the atmosphere and takes valuable grains and food away from the poor. It’s also full of saturated fats and the government subsidizes it, so that’s why you can get a burger at McDonald’s for a buck. Not to mention most meat production is cruel to the animals. Because of these reasons, I don’t eat any types of meat or beef byproducts (milk, butter) with the exception of cheese. Furthermore, every single nutrition finding that scientists make always points back to the same exact thing: vegetables are really good for you. I don’t like to talk about it because people tend to get very touchy about it, but understand I’m not pushing my beliefs or feelings on any of you. I encourage you to eat what you want and what you like, and respect others to do the same.

Food is so important to who we are and how we feel, and I feel so much better now that I’m eating a variety of fruits and vegetables. When I first went vegetarian, it was really hard to know what to pick and what to buy, and it took awhile to stop eating spaghetti and macaroni and cheese only and start eating more vegetables. Despite loving vegetables, it’s not something you really think of a lot of the time.

Other foods that are awesome for lunch: pesto sandwiches/pasta, frozen veggies and freshly baked bread, hardboiled eggs, potato anything, bananas, apples, pickles. My favorite lunches are when I throw a variety of small snacks in my lunchbox – nuts, a banana, a pickle, a slice of bread, an egg. Then I can snack as I get hungry and not overeat! It’s awesome.

What is your favorite lunch? What’s your favorite meal of the day? What sorts of things do you enjoy eating most of all? How do you perceive food in general?

Giveaway winner!

The giveaway is now closed. I drew a name out of a hat according to the entries and the winner is Marie! Her URL doesn’t seem to work, but I’m hoping the email she provided does. Marie, I will be getting in contact with you shortly.

Thanks to all who participated! I have a feeling we’ll have another giveaway soon, so stay tuned!

ETA from Stephanie: Marie talks about her (fabulous) knitting adventures at Sel & Poivre

The Art of the Thank You

Hello all! Have you missed me? I have to admit, the more and more I reacquaint myself with the Internet world, the more and more I realize how much I’ve missed all of YOU. I’ve always said that the reason blogging is such a great outlet is because of the connections you make with other people. So, here I am, once again trying hard to establish a habit of writing.

Speaking of writing, when was the last time you thought about writing thank-you cards? Was it that time, just after Christmas, where you threw a fit when your mother reminded you for the umpteenth time that you have to write thank-you cards for all the presents you got, but you didn’t like the presents you got so you didn’t want to thank whoever gave you them? Or was it when you last applied for a job, and sent along a note thanking the interviewer for giving you a chance, as many people recommend you do? Neither? Both?

To be sure, writing thank-you cards has possibly become more of a lost art than letter-writing, as I have yet to come across a “thank-you cards” blog, but I have come across multitudes of letter-writing ones. Letter-writing is re-surging in the public interest, but thank-you cards remain something only talked about when Emily Post is brought up.

To which I say: No more! Let’s talk about writing thank-you letters. Hey, let’s talk about telling people thank-you, from your heart! What I find wanting in the age of mass communication is not a lack of communication, but a lack of honest communication. It seems to me that I only talk about important things in my classes, and then I talk about them intellectually rather than passionately. I want to talk passionately more often, with more people. I want to have a Meeting of the Minds about how I feel about stewarding the Earth over a cup of hot chocolate at a local café. I want to talk about art and creativity, and how they make you feel more alive. I want to talk about what’s in your heart.

And I want to make absolutely sure those people that do kind things for me know how much I appreciate it.

Which is why I keep a variety of blank note-cards on hand: whenever I receive a gift, or experience someone’s kindness, I like to make sure I have my cards on-hand so that I can write while I’m still feeling the initial awe and gratitude. I find that I don’t want to write a thank-you note if I have to lay out money for a new card each time, and if I have cards already I’m still so excited about the receipt of a gift that I really, really want to just write it out. Then it’s done already, without fuss and with real excitement.

Part of me wonders if my partiality to thank-you cards comes from my time spent in Vienna, a city where the people are readily characterized as “very well-mannered”. While my professors certainly acted with a degree of manners to which I am not at all used to (as a rude American), there was one event in which a couple of strangers did the kindest things for me, simply because they were asked to. I couldn’t fathom their generosity. I wanted so badly to make sure they knew how much I appreciated it, and I bought a thank-you card right away and sent it off. I’m still not sure if it was received, but I hope they know that they contributed greatly to my good impression of a certain landmark and architect in Vienna.

Because of the Viennese rubbing off on me, and my own desire to make people feel appreciated, blank cards for thank-you notes are an important tool in my arsenal of stationery. They may not be used extremely often, but they are there for the times when I realize I need them, and I hope I have convinced you as well of their utility.

Remember to enter Becky’s giveaway! Enough entries and I might host one of my own.

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